


Baker Street: Part I

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 366 [11]
Category: Doctor Kildare, Frozen (Disney Movies), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Supernatural, Tangled (2010)
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Age Difference, American Civil War, Bedfordshire, Begging, Berkshire, Bigotry & Prejudice, Blackmail, Buried Alive, Caring, Cumberland, Disguise, Doctors & Physicians, Embarrassment, England (Country), F/M, Fan-fiction, Framing Story, Friendship, Gay Sex, Grave Robbers, Guns, Happy Ending, Inheritance, Ireland, Jealousy, Jewelry, Johnlock - Freeform, Justice, Kent - Freeform, LARPing, London, Love, M/M, Male Prostitution, Marriage, Middlesex, Minor Character Death, Murder, Music, Nuns, Photography, Police, Politics, Seasickness, Slow Burn, Surrey, Swimming, Technology, Theft, Trains, Unrequited Love, Victorian, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:14:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 64,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22861582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: The Complete Cases Of Sherlock Holmes And John Watson. All 366 cases plus assorted interludes, hiatuses, codas &c.1886. The dynamic duo's first set of cases from their most famous address, 221B Baker Street. Together (if not 'together together' as Holmes's terrifying mother somehow assumes!) they face a barrage of cases in one of the busiest times in the detective's long career, featuring a blackmailed friend, a not-stolen coronet, bigotry in Baker Street, two cold crimes grown hot again, a threatened inheritance, the scheming Baron Maupertuis, an Irish violinist, a paradol chamber and some deadly clothing. Holmes comes up with arguably the cruellest and most effective anti-crime tactic - thus far - while Watson, not for the last time, is horrendously embarrassed by a photograph.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Kristoff, Lucifer/OMC, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Elementary 366 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555741
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	1. Contents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookworm4ever81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm4ever81/gifts), [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



> This series is completely written and will be updated daily until done.  
> New cases are marked ☼.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contents page.

** 1886 **

**Interlude: Pros And Cons**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Holmes considers the pros and cons (mostly the pros) of fratricide_

 **Case 100: The Adventure Of Charles Augustus Milverton**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_A friend of the duo is blackmailed – by someone they know!_

 **Case 101: The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_A coronet is stolen despite Holmes's efforts – or is it?_

 **Case 102: The Adventure Of The Jewish Jeweller**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Holmes helps out his local jeweller_

 **Case 103: The Adventure Of The Second Stain**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_Holmes assists Watson's friend's brother to re-establish his innocence_

 **Interlude: Arrangements**  
by Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles, Esquire  
_A certain detective is not the only Londoner to suffer a lack of modesty_

 **Case 104: The Adventure Of The Last Rebel**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Holmes again outwits his devious brother Randall, this time over a murder plot_

 **Case 105: The End Of The Peer**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_A bad baron is up to no good – so Holmes puts a stop to it_

 **Case 106: The Adventure Of The Resurrectionists ☼**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_Holmes comes up with an evil punishment to match an evil crime_

 **Interlude: Parties And Pools**  
by Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles, Esquire  
_Lucifer Garrick goes swimming – with the insatiable Benji!_

 **Case 107: The Adventure Of The Velveteen Porter**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_Train crashes are far too common, but some are not accidents_

 **Case 108: An Irish Adventure**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_A musical murder – and Watson is not jealous, so there!_

 **Case 109: The Adventure Of The Slipshod Woman**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_Holmes helps out Inspector Macdonald by solving a cold case_

 **Interlude: Dreams**  
by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire  
_A young man's dream comes true – but with a catch_

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** 1887 **

**Case 110: The Adventure Of The Paradol Chamber**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_Holmes has to solve a 'spicy' murder_

 **Case 111: The Adventure Of The Reigate Squires**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_The wrong knight lies dead, and there is a mortifying photograph_

 **Case 112: The Adventure Of The Noble Beggar**  
by Doctor John Watson, M.D.  
_A villain ignores some good advice, and loses his life as a result_

 **Interlude: Out Of The Frying-Pan**  
by Constable Chatton Smith  
_A young policeman dodges danger – for now_

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	2. Interlude: Pros And Cons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. There are some good things about having big brothers. Allegedly. The youngest Holmes wonders just what they are.

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

Of my six brothers – all annoyingly older than me – I have to say that Sherrinford apart the only other one that I have any time for is Carl, and unfortunately he is too busy putting the fear of God into his fighting men (and the rest of the British Army) every day. I do not even have the pleasure of his _doppelgänger_ Luke as my link to the government, having to put up with the oleaginous Randall who, if he pushes things much more, may eventually provoke John into shooting him. Which would have been terrible; we lived on the second floor so disposal of a lounge-lizard's corpse might be somewhat problematic.

Then there was my stepbrother Campbell, the bastard who would frequently call round to the family house, inspire Mother to some new and terrible crime against literature – her latest was 'The Pink Panther', about a French courtesan in the court of Louis the Sixteenth who always left a pink paw-print on the clothes of people who he had.... well, had – then plead urgent business, leaving one of us to face the terror of having it read to us. As I said, bastard!

Today said bastard had come round to Baker Street solely to smirk at the fact that Watson and I were back together. Well, not 'together', and not as Mother for some reason said 'together together', just normal together.....

_How did one set about disowning one's own family?_

“I take it that your 'friend' is out?” he smirked.

I wondered at how he could say quotation marks like that. Also, why was he related to me of all people? Life was unfair!

“He left early in order to call in on Balin and Balan before going to the Surgery”, I told him, “so yes. He has to earn a living, after all.”

“And you have still not told him about your orphanage”, he said reprovingly. “Surely after the last three years you have seen the damage that secrets can do to a relationship?”

“Watson and I do not have a 'relationship'”, I said testily. “We are just friends.”

He gave that remark what was definitely a judgemental silence. I scowled at him.

“Nine years as 'friends' and seven years living together”, he grinned. “Perhaps you had better dig out that framed Order of Service that your mother gave you? She thinks that you are John really are you and John!”

He was just terrible!

“Friends and nothing else”, I said firmly. “I am lucky to have him, and that is that!”

He looked at me shrewdly.

“So you _have_ thought about more, then”, he said with a smile. “Thought so!”

Hmm, fratricide. So many pros, so few (if any) cons......

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	3. Case 100: The Adventure Of Charles Augustus Milverton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. The Iceman returns! Mr. Christopher 'Kristoff' Bond, who Holmes helped 'connect' with Mr. Flynn Rider some years back, is worried that the man he loves is not being straight with him. He is correct, but not for the reasons he thinks as Holmes finds both a dead man and a horribly familiar figure behind the whole sorry mess.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

It was wonderful to be back in London, back in England, and back with Holmes!

Because the events which had taken me to Egypt had occurred before our move here I had seen little of 221B, but I very quickly took to it. Our rooms were commodious, much larger than at either Montague Street or Cramer Street, and I was still within walking distance of my old surgery which had (a little to my surprise) welcomed me back eagerly. I also looked forward to accompanying Holmes on some of his adventures; he had mentioned some happenings during my absence but they rapidly became matters not spoken of. The past was the past, and that was where it belonged.

The house had acquired one notable new resident during my absence, Mrs. Hudson's now eighteen-year-old niece Miss Josephine Thackeray. A small and slight girl, she had I learned quickly established a reputation as not the sort of person you upset unless you wished for a close-up demonstration of her gun collection. That the genteel Mrs. Hudson (who looked much older than me although I was actually a only year her senior) could have acquired such a niece was I thought incredible, but knowing that she herself had a pistol and was not afraid to use it, I commented on neither her appearance nor her niece's character. I quite liked my body in its current arrangement, thank you very much!

Another change during my absence had been totally unexpected, and it was only after Holmes's effusive greeting that I noticed it. He was much tidier in his personal appearance than before, when I had become used to pitying looks from people over my having to accompany an indigent around town. Unfortunately this improved personal care did not extend to his files; he was still haphazard and when needing something would throw things around until he found it, leaving me to tidy up the mess later. If I smiled when I cleaned up after him, well, there was no-one around to see it.

Something else that had not changed was, I quickly found out, breakfast. On my first morning back I still got that piteous look from across the table as if some starving consulting detective was the most bacon-deprived man ever to walk the earth. I noted however that Mrs. Hudson always piled more rashers on my plate so that I could have at least some for myself most days. It was good that she could accommodate the fact that I was considerate to my friend and not, as I had overheard her niece muttering on one occasion, 'whipped'!

Lastly and perhaps the most painful change had been in myself. The generous payments that I had received in my time in Egypt had allowed me to fit myself out with a whole new wardrobe (of course all light wear for the intense heat out there), and having had my old clothes washed I was alarmed to don them and realize just how much weight that I had lost. I frankly looked like a broomstick with aspirations of _grandeur_ little wonder that Holmes had reacted so when he had seen me come through the door although he had covered it well. But my improved financial situation, the surgery welcoming me back and the income from my stories meant that I could again fit myself out and look human again. Or at least fit for the sort of people who would (hopefully) want my services.

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It was a full month after my return before Holmes had a case, and when the gentleman involved arrived to Baker Street we were both surprised and pleased to recognize him. It was Mr. Christopher 'Kristoff' Bond, the iceman who worked at Holmes's brother Campbell's molly-house and who Holmes had 'matched up' with Mr. Flynn Rider back in 'Seventy-Seven (The Adventure Of The Easy Rider; I had probably deserved the eye-roll I had gotten at the time for coming out with that title). 

Holmes welcomed the giant and he sat down on our sofa. Thankfully it held, although I definitely detected a slight creak.

“I trust that you and Mr. Rider are both well?” I asked. I had treated the behemoth a couple of weeks back – in his 'business' minor injuries were an occupational hazard, plus few could afford or for that matter would have wished to have used a doctor – and he had seemed fine then. Presumably something must have happened in that short time.

Mr. Bond's normally open face darkened. I felt an instinctive urge to back away which was ridiculous; for all his size Mr. Bond was a gentle creature whose temper was only ever expounded on those of his clients who had crossed a line and who, once they could stand again, had learned trhe hard way not to repeat their error.

“Flynn is keeping something from me”, he said shortly. “These past two weeks he has been out every evening, which is not like him.”

I knew that while gentlemen such as our friend here did go to their clients' houses from time to time, it was not something that Holmes's stepbrother Mr. Kerr liked to encourage. Society at large found it much easier to pretend that molly-houses did not exist, and that became harder when they saw their neighbours being visited by strange gentlemen who left at somewhat irregular hours. Plus there was the risk to the 'boys' themselves, not that anyone who abused one of them would fail to have an unfortunate encounter in a dark alley soon afterwards. For a 'boy' to go to the same place for two weeks was therefore almost unknown.

I could see that Holmes was thinking much the same from his next question.

“Campbell was all right with this?” he asked. Mr. Bond hesitated.

“Mr. Campbell is a good man, sir”, he said slowly, “and I do not like to say what I am about to say as he is your brother, but I do not think that he was honest with me when I asked him about Flynn. I also caught Mr. Alan looking at him in that disappointed way he has.”

“Campbell would not put any of you in any danger”, Holmes said. “I am certain of that.

“There is something else, sir”, our visitor said, looking even more troubled. “Mr. Campbell and Mr. Alan had an argument about it. They went to the end of the street to talk but Jet, who was coming back from a client, passed them in his cab.”

_('Jet' was in fact Mr. John Smith – yes, that was his name! - and one of the gentlemen that we had rescued from the vile Tankerville Club seven years back. He had acquired his nickname because of his first names (John Edward Thomas) and because he had the blackest skin of any gentleman that I had ever seen; I was not sure about him at all as like his friend and fellow 'escapee' Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles, both men had an annoying habit of coming round here and leering at someone who was not me while I was treating them. And it did not help that Jet was, I suppose, moderately well-endowed. Not that I was jealous of course!)._

“I do not like this”, Holmes said, smiling at me for some strange reason. “And I smell the hand of my unpleasant brother Randall again, who I had thought could not prove that stupid a third time in such quick succession. If he is behind this, I shall _not_ be happy.”

I gestured to the empty box of bullets on the sideboard at him, and he rolled his eyes at me for some reason. What? I was only being helpful!

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We were to be fortunate in that part of the solution to this case actually came to us. A few days after Mr. Bond's visit (Holmes had requested updates on his friend's behaviour, which had continued much as before) Miss Clementine St. Leger, the secretary from Swordland's Information Agency, called round. She was the fourth friend of ours to visit since our return; both Gregson and LeStrade had called in solely to say hullo the day prior, and certainly not because it had been Mrs. Hudson's baking day. _Perish the thought!_

“You are always welcome, madam”, Holmes said, turning the cake-stand so the two jam cream fingers were on our visitor's side and also giving me the sort of annoying look that I had not missed at all in the past three years (well, not much). “How may we be of service?”

“I rather think that it is I who may be of service to you, sirs”, she said, before taking a large bite out of the first finger. She swallowed it and wiped away the sugar before continuing. “Have you read anything about one Mr. Charles Augustus Milverton?”

I just _knew_ that some snarky bastard of a soon to be ex-friend was set to mention my very occasional chance glance at the social pages on the very rare opportunity that I happened to pass a newspaper which may have been left open at them. I glared at him, and of course he looked hurt before quirking an eyebrow expectantly at me.

_(All right, I had sort of missed that too. But then heat did strange things to people, something that I as a doctor well knew)._

“He is the son of an Irish landowner who was impoverished by the changes to land laws on that island some two years back”, I said coolly. “He took the government to court and won, not on the legal point but because the government lawyers so mishandled their paperwork that the judge threw out their case.”

The look continued. I sighed in a put-upon manner.

“He is now very rich and a prominent feature in London society”, I said. “There are all sorts of dark rumours about him, encouraged by the fact that he does not like to be photographed. He has been linked to espionage and persuading officials to sell secrets to Great Britain's many enemies.”

“Do you happen to know which social event he attended last night?” Miss St. Leger asked innocently, reaching for the second jam cream finger. I decided that I did not like her much after all, but was wise enough not even think about saying such a thing.

“He was at the Marchioness of Islandshire's party for the engagement of her daughter, Francesca”, I said. “I only know because her title refers to an area just north of my home town back in Northumberland, although she herself lives in London.

“He did quite well to be at that party”, our visitor said, “all things considered.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he is dead!”, she said flatly. ”And has been for the past two weeks!”

We both stared at her in shock.

“Are you sure?” I asked, although even as I said it I realized what a stupid question it was. This lady's organization knew pretty much everything about everybody.

“I double- and triple-checked”, she said. “He died shortly after arriving in England – well, Holyhead in Anglesey – and was buried in an unmarked grave back in his homeland last week.”

“Why?” I asked. “Not why was he buried, but why did we not read about this? A gentleman dying in a hotel.... he was not murdered, was he?”

“The doctor's report stated he had had a weak heart”, she said. “That may have been true; both his mother and father did. I did look at the doctor who gave the death certificate but he is one of those who, I am sure, could never be bought to do something morally wrong.”

“How does this potential villain concern us?” I wondered. “Unless you wish Holmes to investigate him. But he is dead!”

“That is where you come in”, she said. “I asked myself the obvious question; if Mr. Charles Augustus Milverton is indeed dead and safely buried in Ireland, then who the blazes has been waltzing round London masquerading as him for the past few weeks - and why? So I went and found out, which is what brings me here today. You know the man behind the mask – well, not a mask but let me have that. One Mr. Flynn Rider!”

We both stared in astonishment.

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I might have thought the obvious thing to do would have been to have Mr. Rider round to Baker Street and to ask him what the hell he was playing at. Holmes, of course, knew better.

“I very much fear that either Randall or some other government functionary is behind this”, he said grimly. “We cannot endanger Mr. Rider and quite possibly Mr. Bond by making open contact with the former.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Although _my_ making contact would be risky, you are in and out of Campbell's molly-houses more than some of his 'boys'”, he grinned (I scowled at him for that annoying if arguably accurate remark). “I shall write a list of questions and you will 'just happen' to run into Mr. Rider while treating someone else.”

Hence Holmes sent his stepbrother a telegram, and soon after one came back asking if I could call in to Mildred Lane to treat Mr. Balan Selkirk.

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There was of course no sign of either of the Selkirk twins when I arrived. Holmes's stepbrother Mr. Kerr clearly wished to stay for the interview but his lover Mr. Buxted hustled him out, although he did ask me to treat the 'boy' well. The 'boy' in question was twenty-seven years of age but looked much younger, and I could see that his normal buoyancy and _joie de vivre_ were palpably absent.

“Mr. Holmes wishes to help you”, I said carefully, “as do I, but we can only do that if you are honest with us. My friend had two questions for you, and I am afraid that the first in particular is a painful one so I will come right out and say it. _How did they blackmail you?_

He shook at my words and I honestly feared that he was going to start crying. I took his hands and that seemed to steady him, but it was some time before he spoke.

“Do you remember a fellow called Thomas O'Malley, doctor?”

For a moment I was nonplussed, then it came to me. The O'Malley brothers had been Irish separatists who had plotted to assassinate the Queen and had come rather too close to so doing. Only a fortuitous change of the royal schedule had led to a delay in their evil scheme and to one of the plotters' landladies becoming suspicious enough to inform the authorities, which had saved the situation. Naturally all the plotters had been hung, and a good thing too.

“Thomas O'Malley was my natural father!”

Oh. _Now_ I saw it. Had that sort of fact come out in the newspapers, this poor fellow would have had no choice but to leave his relatively happy life for a time. I knew that Mr. Bond, who was a deeply patriotic fellow, would have stood by his man. But the poor wreck before me could not have been sure of that.

“Thank you for telling me”, I said. “Holmes said to assure you that we will keep this confidence for you. That leaves just one other question.”

I took a deep breath,

 _”Who_ blackmailed you?”

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When I told Holmes of my findings later, I do not think that I have ever seen him so angry. And when I saw the look of vengeance on his face as he plotted a resolution to this mess, I once again gave thanks that he was on the side of righteousness, for that look was pure evil! Thankfully the man it was directed at.... well, that was what life-insurance was for, after all.

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“I know that we all have to make sacrifices”, I grumbled, “but if your mother starts with one of her stories I am going to plead an urgent appointment with a patient somewhere!”

He smiled at my annoyance. We were at his parents' house and yes, his mother was there. I had checked frantically around for any manuscripts but had seen none, although there were always locked drawers and desks. The writing-desk over there might be hiding all sorts of horrors.....

“They are here.”

I jumped ever so slightly and gave a moderately high-pitched manly expression of surprise (yes it _was!)_ I glared at the evil bastard beside me who was that close to an annoying smirk, but unfortunately his mother chose that moment to enter. Even more unfortunately she was not alone. Mr. Randall Holmes, lounge-lizard and bane of my existence whose three-year absence from my life had made Egypt seem more bearable than it might otherwise have been, was with her.

“Hullo, mother”, Holmes smiled. “I said that I would come round and bring Watson once he was settled in again.”

“My sherry-werry-werry-werry-werry!”

The effusive greeting that Holmes had given me the month before had nothing on his nearly being smothered by his mother. Mr. Randall Holmes smirked annoyingly and I silently started listing all the poisons that might 'accidentally' end up in his drink the next time that he called at Baker Street. I was up to a round dozen before Lady Holmes finally stopped mauling her son.

“Thank you for that, Mother”, Holmes gasped, recovering but somehow still managing to give me a disapproving look. “Watson and I are just finishing a case, and I thought that to celebrate I would buy you a nice new walking-stick.”

He handed the stick that he had brought to his mother. It was polished ebony, rather thick for a lady (I thought) but clearly of the best quality.

“Thank you _so_ much, dear!” his mother boomed. “Did you solve your little case?”

“It is nearly done, Mother”, Holmes said. “You would hardly believe it, but some cruel and horrible man – I will not say gentleman for he is none – actually contrived to blackmail one of Campbell's 'boys' into masquerading as someone else. Just because the poor, handsome young man had a connection to one of these Irish terrorists.”

Lady Holmes frowned. The look on the lounge-lizard's face was one of barely-concealed horror.

“But they are all such sweeties!” she trilled. “I do hope that it was not that lovely Shillelagh Seamus?”

_(As punishment for breaching the molly-house rule on not doing outside work while on their lists, Mr. Campbell Kerr had sent Mr. Seamus Oriel round to Lady Holmes just as she was looking for a vict.... someone to try out her latest short story on. The huge Irishman had not been able to bear being in the same room as any Holmes ever since, and shuddered even when I was treating him lest Mr. Holmes's friend pull one of those terrible stories out of his medical bag; his distress was such that he did not realize just how impossible such a thing was. That had been back in 'Seventy-Six; no-one had breached that rule since!)_

“No, the charming young Mr. Flynn Rider”, Holmes said, eyeing a brother who was now definitely edging towards the nearest doorway. “Further investigations made the matter even worse, I am afraid. This horrible person had instructions to actually _murder_ the young man once he had done using him. Dead men tell no tales, as they say in the _criminal_ world.”

Lady Holmes frowned.

“Who would do something as low-down and despicable as.....”

I could see the exact moment that she got it.

“RAN-DALL!!!!!”

Mr. Randall Holmes was within two steps of the door and almost made it. But although his mother was some yards away, she apparently knew how to use her handy new walking-stick like a javelin......

What a brilliant aim!

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“Two weeks in hospital this time”, Holmes smiled as we returned to Baker Street. “During which Mother will be visiting him with her stories, every day. Some people do not learn.”

“What about Mr. Bond?” I asked.

“I had him over yesterday and explained matters to him”, Holmes said. “He was as you might have imagined upset, not just because he is such an ardent patriot but also because the man that he loves did not trust him. However he said that he was sure Mr. Rider could make it up to him, so I have paid Campbell to let them have a couple of days in the countryside to work things through.”

And that was why I liked him. Because he was a good man - and his mother was a great shot!

Now if only he could stop with the damn knowing looks!

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The following week I met what little was left of Mr. Rider. Apparently he and Mr. Bond had indeed worked things through. Very thoroughly. _Seventeen times!_

No gentleman should ever smile like that, in my humble opinion!

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	4. Case 101: The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. A case in which Holmes was asked to prevent the theft of an expensive jewellery item and duly did. Although possibly not to his client's full satisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of several adventures involving a 'second stain' element but not the famous one which, by a strange coincidence, happened not long after.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

“I see that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is back in town.”

I looked up in surprise. Miss Gladys Peabody was our secretary at the surgery, chillingly efficient at both her job and keeping patients (and we doctors!) in order, but she rarely spoke unless spoken to. She was the archetypal old maid and the only time that I had ever thought otherwise was when a certain acquaintance of mine who solved crimes for a living had called at the surgery and she had simpered at him. 

I had not rolled my eyes _that_ much.

“Is he in the newspaper for some reason?” I asked. 

She looked at me far too knowingly for a lady of her class.

“You were smiling at that awful Mrs. Bellingham”, she said. “Either Mr. Holmes is back in town or you have purloined the key to the medicine store and helped yourself to the 'happy pills'. The key is locked in my drawer, so obviously he is back.”

“Good detective work, Miss Peabody”, I smiled. She was not the only one to have spotted my improved mood that morning, though no-one else had guessed why. “Can you send Mr. Fisherton in please?”

“Of course, _sir.”_

I looked at her suspiciously. So what if Holmes's return had improved my general demeanour? It made for happier patients, which could only be a good thing. 

I returned to my room, smiling for no particular reason.

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“You have just missed Randall”, Holmes said when I returned to our rooms later that day. I clutched my hand to my chest in mock agony.

“Oh noes!” I said melodramatically raising my hand to my face in mock despair. “However will I cope with such an earth-shattering, apocalyptic disappointment? Woe, woe, and thrice woe!”

He shook his head and tutted at my theatrics, but I could see the smile in his eyes.

“He may be out of hospital”, he said, “but since Mother was less than satisfied with his behaviour over the mysterious Mr. Charles Augustus Milverton she insisted that both she and I be fully briefed on his 'extended life'. He is due to fall – as in be pushed - off Westminster Bridge tomorrow evening.”

“How is he going to manage that?” I asked. 

“Mr. Flynn – thankfully he is capable of walking again after his recent 'apology' to Mr. Bond – will play one final and tragic encore as Mr. Milverton. He will approach a journalist and promise to meet the fellow again on Saturday to discuss 'a matter of international import', for which he will be bringing written proof of high-level malfeasance. That however is an appointment that our already dead friend is destined not to make. A government agent nearby will soon after report to a passing police officer that he heard a splash in the Thames and they will find Mr. Milverton's hat by the side of the river.”

“Might someone not notice that the fellow has died twice?” I wondered. He shook his head.

“Miss St. Leger told me that he had been travelling under a false name at the time of his death and was laid to rest in Dublin under that”, he said. “The newspapers will be told that a body has been recovered and subsequently identified by a cousin who is removing it to his native Ireland”, he said. “It seemed appropriate as that was where the real Mr. Milverton came from and ended up.”

“A veritable send-off!” I smiled. “And Mr. Bond has accepted Mr. Flynn's having been forced into all this, so all has ended well.”

“Except possibly for Randall”, he said, “not that I am sure either of us cares for that. And Mr. Bond has arranged to have Balin and Balan round to his house this weekend so Mr. Rider can 'fully apologize' – again!”

Poor Mr. Rider. I might be seeing him again as a patient if this kept up!

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My improved mood was almost inevitably curtailed when Holmes managed to catch me out in a rather embarrassing situation a short time later. 

“I do not suppose that you have seen my deer-stalker?” he suddenly asked.

He was of course renowned for that hat which, along with his equally famous pipe, he had inherited from the ill-starred Lord Tobias Hawke whom he had so admired when but a boy. As I have mentioned before he considered both items far too precious for regular use and kept them locked away in his desk. He had one spare pipe plus three spare hats, which he only used one of at a time. And unfortunately I knew exactly where his 'current' hat was.

“In my, uh, hasty departure for Egypt I packed it with my things”, I said, suddenly finding the fireside rug unusually fascinating for some reason. 

He stared at me curiously. Clearly he was wondering why, given the parlous state of our friendship back then, I had not troubled myself to send the thing back through the general post. Or to just drop it in the Nile.

“I doubt that you found much use for it somewhere as hot as Egypt”, he said at last.

I blushed deeply. As my feelings towards him had softened during my time there, I had maybe on the very odd occasion sat in my room of an evening wearing the thing. Thank heavens that no-one had seen me....

Hie blue eyes suddenly widened, and too late I remembered. The mind-reading thing.... oh Lord!

He too had blushed bright red. The Good Lord seriously owed me for this!

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“I have another case.”

It was the start of July and I had settled into having Holmes back in my life almost as if he had not been absent these past three years. My heart leaped at those words and I looked eagerly across the breakfast table. I had had a full weekend off but had not wanted to leave 221B, content to just laze around the house. Holmes had teased me that I would now tolerate even his violin-playing and had duly struck up, but I had not minded much to his evident surprise. I was just glad to have him back. Indeed if I had thought about it I suppose my reluctance to leave the house was partly due to a fear that he might suddenly disappear on me again, although short of mounting a twenty-four hour guard and actually sleeping with the fellow there was no way that I could have prevented such a calamity.

“Who is it?” I asked. 

“Lady Moreton-Coles wishes to consult me about a possible theft”, he said. 

I looked at him in confusion.

“How can one have a 'possible theft'?” I asked dubiously. “Has the would-be thief sent her a letter of intent to steal from her?”

He chuckled at that.

“She believes that someone – I presume a specific someone, reading between the lines - will attempt to steal her beryl coronet”, he said. “It is all a little delicate.”

I sighed.

“You do not wish for me to be here”, I said, trying to be understanding.

“Watson!”

I started. He seemed shocked by his own vehemence, judging from the faint blush that appeared. There was an awkward silence between us.

“You know me well enough that in the unlikely event a case cannot involve you, then I would say so directly”, he said eventually, and he sounded almost hurt. “I merely wished to ascertain if you could leave work early one day this week so that you could be here when she calls.”

I felt warmed by his inclusion of me in the matter.

“Wednesdays are usually quiet just now”, I said. “If I took some extra patients on the other days I am sure that they would let me off an hour or two earlier.”

“Then if you can confirm that with them this morning”, he said, “send me a telegram and I shall inform Lady Moreton-Coles that she can come here on Wednesday at four o' clock.”

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I must admit, I rather liked Lady Antonia Moreton-Coles whom I had read about on the very rare occasion that I may have happened to glance briefly at the social pages if the newspaper chanced to be open at them (and some smart-arsed personage in the vicinity had better not be smirking any time soon!). She was first cousin to the Duchess of Stratford-on-Avon (a ghastly harridan with purple hair, bad breath, a philandering husband, a sister who was pregnant likely by one of her own footmen, and servants who hated her) but of much better character and rich in her own right, her father having speculated successfully in an assortment of industries. She was known for championing decent conditions for the workers in her husband's factories and was a financial supporter of (although not an active campaigner for) women's suffrage.

She was also very obviously ill-at-ease. I took the seat at the table with my notebook at the ready. Holmes sat her down in the fireside chair and took his own seat opposite her, looking expectantly at her. Clearly his tactics worked for she soon opened up to him. 

“I hardly like to say what I am about to”, she said looking nervously anywhere but at my friend.

“Madam”, Holmes said calmly, “be assured that everything you say in this room is in complete confidence. The doctor's notes are for my own records and would never be published as a case should they affect anyone innocent. Our discretion can be _guaranteed.”_

That word seemed to calm our guest as it often did for several of our clients, especially the richer ones. She took a deep breath before beginning.

“I am sure that you know my familial circumstances, Mr. Holmes”, she began. “I am rich in my own right, which is unusual in this day and age. When I decided to marry Denzil my father fiercely opposed the match – he believed that only a titled noble was good enough for his elder daughter – and he only gave in after my future husband agreed to sign a legal document waiving all and any rights to my wealth.”

 _(Lady Moreton-Coles was as rich as she was partly because she had only one other sibling, a younger sister called Edwina who had married spectacularly badly to a banker called Mr. Salmon. She had found him_ in flagrante delicto _with two of her maids and had shot him dead. Despite evidence of her own wayward habits a jury had very generously spared her life but she would never breathe free air again and all her money had reverted to the lady before us.)_

“Such a document might not stand up in court”, Holmes observed. 

“With the new law on the property of married women my father's lawyers assured him that it would”, she said firmly. “They are among the best in London so I am sure that they are right. But that is merely background information, although possibly relevant to what has happened in the last few months.”

“Please go on”, Holmes said politely. She took another deep breath.

“Four months ago, my husband's valet retired. Killigrew was very much old-school; dependable enough if inclined to water the whisky at times, but with servants nowadays one has to take what one can get. Unfortunately his replacement, Mr. Dean Macbeth, worries me.”

“Why?” Holmes asked.

“I was not overly enamoured of him when we sat through the various applicants but the others were all _quite_ intolerable”, she said. “However, since his arrival Denzil had started getting into 'bad ways'. He is increasingly evasive over money and I think that he has started taking out loans.”

“He cannot do that forever”, I observed. She nodded.

“That alone I might have been prepared to overlook”, she said. “Marriage is after all about give and take, after all. But two weeks ago he came to me and said that he wanted to actually.... _insure my beryl coronet!”_

She sounded as if this were a crime in itself. We both looked at her in puzzlement.

“I have always distrusted _insurance_ agents”, she said shuddering as she said the dreaded word. “A good safe or strong-box is better than paying someone for nothing; besides one can place money aside in a bank and still have it. But Denzil decided that he wanted to insure it for five thousand pounds†.”

Holmes was as usual ahead of me.

“You are fearful that your husband may attempt to engineer a fake theft of the coronet”, he said, “and then claim the insurance.”

“Yes”, she admitted. “He made the first payment himself and promised to transfer it over to my name, but he keeps delaying it and on the flimsiest of pretexts. I fear that he may have the coronet stolen some day soon, claim the money himself and then leave me. I do not _think_ that he is seeing anyone else – I have a good standing among the servants so I am sure that they would have told me - but my female intuition tells me that something bad may be about to happen.”

Holmes looked thoughtfully at her.

“It would be very difficult to stop such a theft happening”, he said. “As with most crimes the advantage lies with the perpetrator, who can choose the time and place of their strike. Unless of course you encouraged it.”

She stared at him in shock.

“I beg your pardon?” 

“What I meant”, he said, “was that you could engineer a situation whereby he had an opportunity to take the coronet, then have someone ready on hand to catch him or his agent 'in the act'.”

She sighed unhappily

“I hope that I might be proven wrong about him”, she said, “but perhaps such a thing could also show his innocence if he does not make an attempt. I will do as you advise, Mr. Holmes.”

“Good”, he smiled. “I will think about this some more then visit you at home tomorrow.”

“But surely that will alert my husband?” she protested. Holmes nodded.

“Precisely”, he said. “It will tell him that if he is going to act then it must be very soon. When he learns that I am currently too busy but will be free in two weeks' time say, then he will have to act now. Either way you will _know_ , Lady Moreton-Coles, and that knowledge will bring you peace of mind.”

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The next morning Holmes went to Granville House to tell Lady Moreton-Coles (coincidentally in the presence of her most gossip-prone maid) that he could not accept her case just now as he had a pressing government matter to attend to but would call again as soon as he could, most likely soon after her return from her forthcoming trip to Scotland. She had in turn invited him to dinner that same evening. 

“Lady Moreton-Coles has told her husband that she does not want to risk taking the coronet on a train and will entrust it to the bank while she is gone”, he told me when I had got home after another trying day at the surgery. “As I am due to meet with her immediately upon her return the attempted theft must be made prior to her departure, possibly even tonight.”

“Had you not better get ready?” I asked. Having regular hours at the surgery meant that I usually arrived to our rooms at the same time every evening but occasionally as tonight I was a little late. I was also hungry; at least we would eat before his departure as these sort of events rarely provided much in the way of food.

“I was waiting for you”, he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Me?” I exclaimed.

He looked as surprised as I felt.

“Of course”, he said as if it were obvious. “I cannot undertake a case without my faithful friend.”

I knew that I was blushing but I felt so warmed at that that I simply did not care. Thankfully our dinner arrived at that moment, so the number of Man Points that I lost was minimal.

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I was surprised that our cab took us not to Benbow Square but instead to Parsons Gardens, the _cul-de-sac_ that terminated at the back of Granville House. Holmes said that he wanted to check the rear of the property for some reason, but fortunately he did not take long and it was only a short walk round to the front of the place. 

Less fortunately said house was pink. Not pastel, but _shocking pink!_ Not even a tree or eight to tone down the garishness. It was truly abominable!

“Cannot I just stay outside with a paint-pot?” I muttered as we left our cab. “Or some dark glasses. There ought to be a by-law against such horrors.”

Holmes chuckled.

“It is a little.... forward”, he admitted. “I would like to talk with Lord Moreton-Coles before his wife makes her grand entrance.”

“Of course”, I said following him inside. 

We were duly announced and Holmes led me across to where Lord Denzil Moreton-Coles was standing. He was a pasty-faced and rather worried-looking blond fellow in his mid-thirties, almost a decade younger than his wife. I was a little surprised that standing behind him was presumably the valet in question, Macbeth – valets did not attend dinners, surely? He was perhaps a few tears younger than his master although in far better condition, his black hair gelled and shining in the gaslight. 

One thing that even I noticed was the valet's reaction when Holmes mentioned who we were, which was most definitely one of alarm. Lord Moreton-Coles muttered something to him and he swiftly left us. 

“Your valet seems quite young for his post, sir”, Holmes observed. Lord Moreton-Coles nodded.

“Yes he is”, he said. “I interviewed six people when my last valet left and the other candidates were all older than him, but my wife disliked all of them even though two were rather more qualified.”

 _Not as much as she dislikes this one now_ , I thought.

“She will be making her grand entrance shortly”, Lord Moreton-Coles said. “She loves sweeping down the long staircase to descend unto the rabble below.”

 _Miaow!_ , I thought. Even though I pointedly looked across the room, I could feel 'someone' giving me a disapproving look. Harrumph!

“I wish that I had been able to help her over her concerns about that coronet of hers”, my mind-reading friend said ruefully, “but lately I have been extremely busy. Also some of my clients.... one cannot keep government or royalty waiting as I am sure you understand. But I have promised her that upon her return from Scotland I shall be able to give her my immediate attention.”

Lord Moreton-Coles nodded again.

“She has a bee in her bonnet about me insuring the damn thing”, he said. “I had a jeweller in Bond Street make her a top-quality copy but she does not like wearing it. She says that it does not _feel_ like the real thing.”

“The female of the species can be strange in her ways”, Holmes agreed, “especially when it comes to polished pieces of rock. Ah, I can see that your wife is leaving her room. We shall allow you to go and meet her.”

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Dinner was almost over when I noticed Holmes sat to my left talking to his neighbour Lady Moreton-Coles.

“You seem a little uncomfortable. my lady”, he observed. She sighed.

“I yielded to Denzil's persuasion and am wearing the fake coronet”, she said ruefully. “I know it looks exactly the same as the real one, but I _hate_ it! I think that I shall have to go and change.”

He nodded understandingly and the gentleman all stood as she left the table. She had barely gone before the butler announced that coffee was being served in the drawing-room. We all filed out and I noticed that Holmes looked rather pensive. I was about to ask him why when there was the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot from upstairs, swiftly followed by another.

“Antonia!” Lord Moreton-Coles yelled, and led the charge. I was about to follow when Holmes laid a restraining hand on me. and I saw him shake his head slightly.

I had the distinct feeling that somehow, he had been expecting this.

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Granville House lay on the edge of the area served by Sergeant Gregson's station and fortunately he himself was on duty that evening. Holmes spent some time talking with him outside then the two joined myself and the Moreton-Coleses in the lounge. The only other person there was Clara, Lady Antonia's personal maid. The sergeant pulled out a notebook.

“I comprehend how terrible this must be for you, my lady”, he said gravely, “but it's important that we get a full understanding of the dreadful events of this evening while memories are still fresh.”

She nodded and leaned back on the couch. I noted that she turned to her maid for comfort, not her husband.

“I went up to change the fake coronet for the real one”, she said wiping her eyes. “I entered the room and there was this figure at the window. I could only see an outline but he was holding the coronet. He threw it over the balcony, then turned and saw me. He had a knife - I saw it gleam in the light from outside - so I took out my revolver and.... and.....”

She juddered to a halt. I wondered at that; a thief on a balcony might surely have tried to escape rather than risk murdering someone and drawing attention to his presence? 

“We found boot marks in the mud near the wall at the back of your garden”, the sergeant said, “and a fallen brick where it looked as if someone had cleared the wall. So two men, and the second one got away with the real coronet.” He stared at Lord Moreton-Coles. “I am led to understand you had just had it insured, sir?”

“I did”, the lord said testily. “What are you implying, sergeant?”

“Just getting all the facts, sir”, Gregson said calmly. Both he and LeStrade had, I knew, long perfected the sort of blank look that made the average cow look as if it was severely over-concentrating. “I am sorry that it was your valet who got shot.”

Lady Moreton-Coles sniffed.

“I always knew he was a bad lot!” she almost hissed. “He would have got away with it if I had not gone back to my room just then.”

Gregson nodded then ushered myself and Holmes from the room. He led us to the billiard-room where he leaned against one of the tables.

“If only she had been there ten seconds earlier we might still have the bauble”, he sighed. “Now that villain's confederate has gotten away with it!”

Holmes smiled.

“May we go to where the shooting happened, Gregson?” he asked.

“What do you expect to see there?” the sergeant asked as he led the way out of the room and over to the stairs. “I hope it is quick; there is a room full of the great and the good down there who are getting their feathers ruffled about not being allowed to leave. They are not the sort of people that someone in my position can afford to upset if he wants to get on!”

My friend just shook his head. We made it to Lady Moreton-Coles's room and once inside Holmes immediately began searching around the dressing-table.

“The body was over by the window, sir”, Gregson pointed out, clearly puzzled by his actions. 

Holmes looked at him then pulled back one of the rugs and pointed. There was a small but definite blood-stain on the wooden floor.

“I would wager”, he said quietly, “that that is from the victim, Macbeth. Probably from the shot that killed him. If you are fortunate you may find hairs from this unpleasant rug on his clothing; it seems somewhat adhesive.”

“But that is at least five yards from the window”, I pointed out. “If he had been bleeding enough to case that sort of mark, then he surely would have left a trail of blood as he went?”

“Exactly”, Holmes said. 

He sat down in the wicker chair by the bed and pressed his fingers together in thought.

“This was an excellently planned crime”, he said eventually. “One highly able criminal mind, and one unwitting scapegoat who took the fall.”

“The thief got away, sir”, Gregson pointed out. To my surprise Holmes shook his head.

“When you saw those footprints Gregson, what did you notice?” he asked. 

“They were deep”, the sergeant said. “And wet.”

“Precisely.”

The sergeant looked as confused as I felt. Holmes sighed.

“Not the footprints but the spaces between them”, he said. “They were very evidently made by someone _walking_ , since they were evenly spaced and the pressure applied to each step was what one might expect from a walking person whose balance is equally distributed fore and aft. But a running person – and we are invited to believe that the thief was running while making his escape - applies pressure _forwards_ and would also have had slightly wider gaps on whichever was their principal side, left or right. Finally, although it has only just begun to rain there was a considerable amount of water in each print.”

I gasped.

“They were fakes!” I said. “A false trail.”

“Indeed”, he said smiling at me. “Someone wished to create the impression that a second man took the coronet. There was also the loose brick in the wall, yet there is a perfectly serviceable and unlocked gate a little further along, the path beyond which is both quiet and not overlooked.”

So that was why he had wanted to see the back of the house earlier.

“But Lady Moreton-Coles told us that Macbeth was calling down to someone and threw the coronet to him”, I objected.

Holmes looked at me from his chair, clearly willing me to get it. 

“She was lying?” I asked. “But why?”

He sat back again.

“We know that Lady Moreton-Coles married her husband against the wishes of her family”, he said. “That counsel, much as she resented it at the time, turned out to be quite justified. Denzil Moreton-Coles was a poor husband and she quickly tired of him. But even with all the paperwork and law on her side she knew that she would have to pay him off if only to avoid the horrible publicity that he might engender - _unless_ he was accused of a crime and there was publicity anyway, in which case things would be considerably easier for her.”

“She plans it well. When her husband's old valet retires she ensures that her accomplice, the hapless Mr. Macbeth, is employed as his replacement by objecting to all the rival candidates. She then very publicly makes it clear that she does not like or trust him, so that no-one can suspect their partnership. I am afraid that she may even have hinted to him that after the divorce there might be the prospect of her marrying him. It was however her intention all along that her partner in crime should die in a faked theft of the beryl coronet. Dead men tell no tales, as they so often say.”

“A faked theft?” I ventured. “But it was stolen.”

“No”, he said. “Remember that we only had her word for what happened here. She has arranged that Macbeth will be in her room at a certain time, to fake the theft. By ostensibly wearing the fake coronet and then deciding to change it because she feels unhappy, she has the perfect reason to meet him there – but instead of letting him 'steal' it, she shoots him dead – by the dressing-table where the coronet was usually kept, not the window where she said. She also has time to exchange the coronets and to hide the real one somewhere in the room. I would wager that she chose her safe; I am sure that you have access to an expert who can open it without her knowledge, Gregson. Next she drags his body across the room and throws it over the balcony. You will remember that we had to break down a locked door even though she had only gone in to change her headwear.”

“She looks strong enough to haul a man like Macbeth around”, Gregson conceded. 

“I dare say that if you look hard enough you will find the boots that Macbeth used to make the fake prints”, Holmes said. “Lady Moreton-Coles may also find it hard to explain why, as Watson so correctly pointed out, her husband's valet was shot in one place, bled enough to make a considerable mark yet somehow staggered five yards across a room without leaving so much as a single mark. Not to mention how the rug was moved to hide the original mark. However I very much fear that your real problems will lie further down the line.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Macbeth is dead”, he said. “She is alive and I am sure that a smart lawyer will ensure that as much blame as possible is pinned on the evil, conniving valet rather than the poor, defenceless lady who was so grievously misled and so cruelly taken advantage of. I doubt that you will get a murder conviction, much as she merits one.”

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Postscriptum: Holmes turned out to be mostly right. When the case did reach court the jury refused to convict on a count of murder, obviously feeling that there was enough doubt as to the lady's full complicity. She was however sentenced to gaol for two whole decades although I felt it wrong that she did not pay the ultimate price for murder. It turned out however that the Fates had something rather crueller in mind; six months before the end of her sentence she caught pneumonia and died with freedom in sight. Her wealth had long passed to the husband that she had wanted to dispose of, and when he offered to pay Holmes for his services my friend waived it in favour of the late Mr. Macbeth's family, a brother and a sister whom the valet had been helping to support and who had been totally innocent in the matter. That was so typical of the fellow.

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_Notes:_   
_† About £550,000 ($700,000) at 2020 prices._

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	5. Case 102: The Adventure Of The Jewish Jeweller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. After a faked jewellery theft, surely not another faked jewellery theft? A local jeweller suffers an attempted burglary, one of his customers is attacked, then another has their newly-polished necklace stolen. What on earth is going on just along the road from 221B?

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

It was so wonderful having Watson back, and hunting criminals like the olden days (I was only thirty-one for Heaven's sake; when had I started to become so maudlin?). Also, although I knew through Miss St. Leger that he had kept my deer-stalker hat on his bedpost for nearly his whole time away, I never chivvied him on it. Best of all he was starting to fill out again and return to his old form, such that I no longer felt guilty about his very occasional passing of a rasher of bacon or two across to me on the odd morning or three. I just enjoyed having him around again and looked forward to many happy years of us here in Baker Street, peaceful and uninterrupted.

In fact we were to have barely a year.

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One of the things that Watson always made a point of praising me for in his writings was the fact that I took cases on whether or not they interested me, and hardly ever on who was requesting my help (unless of course it was a friend or acquaintance of mine or his). Hence this small matter which as things turned out did not require me to go much beyond Baker Street, yet for the gentleman involved was a matter of life and death - or at least, business. It also demonstrated another curious point about my caseload in that sometimes two similar cases, in this case involving jewellery theft, happened close to each other.

Mr. Noah Abrahams ran the jewellery shop a little way down the road from 221B, a well-ordered establishment which Watson and I patronized from time to time. It was a popular little place, so when the problems started I naturally became involved.

The first incident came as a terrible shock to me, and not for the reasons one might think. It was a Tuesday, and the night before there had been an attempted break-in at Mr. Abrahams's shop. The villains had managed to get inside but the owner's assistant Mr. Lee who slept in the flat above the shot had been alerted and had yelled for assistance. The villains had fled empty-handed according to a check done by Mr. Abrahams this morning.

The shock came that same morning when Sergeant Gregson arrived. _On a non-baking day!_ Watson and I looked at each other in confusion, then at the calendar, but we were not mistaken.

“What?” the tall sergeant asked. “Cannot a fellow come round to see his friends once in a while?”

“You do know that there is no cake today?” Watson asked (he really was terrible at times, even if I had been thinking exactly the same). 

“It is not as if I live for the stuff”, Gregson said testily. 

Watson seemed to be having a fit of coughing. I hid a smile at our visitor's scowl.

“Are you here in connection with Mr. Abrahams's break-in?” I asked.

“Yes, sir”, he said, looking worried now. “Wilkinson, the constable who took down the report, is a sharp fellow. He came and told me that he thought something was wrong so he did a bit of digging. The lock on the main door had been forced all right - _but from the inside!_ ”

Although I did not doubt the sergeant or his constable (John Wilkinson was indeed a sharp fellow and would go far in the Service if there was any justice in this world), I knew that there had to be more to it than this. Mr. Noah Abrahams was one of the most honest men around - and amid London businessmen that sort of thing really stood out - so for him to have tried to fake a break-in would have been like....

I slapped my thigh as I finally got it, and stared accusingly at our visitor.

“Mrs. Hudson is not baking today because she never does after visiting Wilkinson's mother over in Melcombe Street”, I said, staring at our visitor accusingly. “Mrs. Wilkinson always gives her half of the leftover cake to take home with her, and she got back only ten minutes before you got here. _Gregson!”_

The tall policeman blushed. He was as bad as Watson at times! I shook my head at him but sent down to our landlady to ask if there was a spare slice of cake for our visitor. One duly arrived along with a note; there would have been more but apparently a certain other London sergeant had 'chanced to meet' our landlady on the steps and had been given it.

We had terrible friends!

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The more that I thought about it, the stranger this break-in seemed. Nothing taken, no motive, someone inside faking it.... what was going on here? I also had a nasty suspicion that Mr. Abrahams being a Jew might be involved in some way, although I could not see how as of yet. I was sure however that there would soon be further developments, and I just two days later I was proven right.

Mr. Henry Glenalmond - fifty-one, married with two children, distantly related to royalty, financially incontinent, bad breath, a pregnant maid who had recently quitted his service in curious circumstances and would I please not mention someone's very occasional glancing at the social pages - had just collected his repaired and cleaned pocket-watch from Mr. Abrahams when he was assaulted as he left Baker Street and turned into Melcombe Street. The watch was snatched from him and the thieves had effected a getaway, but as they were doing so one of them had yelled 'don't shop there!' at him. When I read of this I began to have a suspicion as to which way this case was heading, and immediately contacted Miss St. Leger for a list of the people who might well be involved. It duly arrived that afternoon and confirmed my suspicions, so I headed for Mr. Abrahams's shop to ask him if any of the people on it were customers of his.

“Lady Sandbach is”, he said. “She is Mr. Glenalmond's cousin I think; their family tree is rather convoluted what with cousins marrying each other as they are wont to do. I do not recognise any of the other names but I can ask Philip....”

“I would rather not involve Mr. Lee just now, if you do not mind”, I said, to his evident surprise. “My current line of inquiries suggest that he himself may become a target for someone in the future, and if I am right on this then the less he knows the better.”

“Should we not warm him?” Mr. Abrahams asked anxiously.

“If he is seen acting out of character for any reason then the danger to him only increases”, I said. “You know what lawyers are like; if it ever comes to trial and it emerges that he knew anything in advance, that would undermine the prosecution's case. I am sorry that I cannot be more explicit, sir, but once this case is resolved I will be able to explain matters to you.”

I did in truth feel more than a little bad at not having been completely straight with the fellow, but needs must.

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Over dinner that evening John iterated my earlier observation that history really was repeating itself, another questionably jewellery case involving a Lady Antonia. I was just happy to have him back, although the fact that Mrs. Hudson had unusually gone for a full English breakfast with her deliciously crispy bacon may have been a small, additional factor in my happiness. And that Watson had forked over nearly all of his bacon at the merest hint of a look.

Just possibly.

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We had to wait another two days before the event that I had been expecting; Lady Antonia Sandbach was attacked within sight of Mr. Abrahams's shop. She had for reasons one might only wonder at decided that the middle of a busy London street was the best place to extract the bag containing her new jewelled necklace, and someone had run up behind her, snaffled it and fled. I only hoped that Gregson was up to snuff and would do everything I asked, even though I very much doubted that some in the Service would be happy with the result. I perhaps should have cared about that rather more than I actually did (i.e. not at all). Then again, perhaps not.

I met Gregson at his station within minutes of receiving his telegram; unfortunately one of Watson's female clients had very selfishly decided to go into labour at precisely the wrong moment so I was deprived of my friend. Some people are so inconsiderate! 

The sergeant's glum face told me the news before he could put it into words. I sometimes hated being right, but this was not one of those times. He took me into the interview room where Antonia, Lady Sandbach was waiting with visible impatience. The _grande dame_ was about fifty years of age, matronly and with the sort of nose that the Good Lord designed to be looked down from. She glared at me as if her being there was totally my fault. Which in a way it was.

“I am sorry to have detained you, my lady”, I said politely. “My name is Mr. Sherlock Holmes and I am here about the theft that you faked earlier today.”

She spluttered indignantly at that, as did her lawyer who for some reason reminded me of a vulture. His name was Mr. Parris and he had the same lofty look as his employer.

“There are laws of libel and slander in this country, sir”, he said. “I would be very careful if I were you!”

I took a seat opposite them both and smiled pleasantly.

“It was two small things that I noted after the supposed break-in a few nights back that alerted me to the horrible truth behind this case”, I said. “First, I wondered why both Her Ladyship and Mr. Glenalmond, both of whom live some distance away, would come all this way to what is admittedly a good jewellery shop but against which there would be many others of at least an acceptable standard much nearer their homes. I wondered about something else as well. Servants are useful at times, especially when it comes to servants of those people who delight in talking down to them. Said servants are much more likely tell strangers about, say, the virulent hatred that their master or mistress has for people of the Jewish religion.”

The smarmy lawyer looked sharply at me, but I could tell that his client had started to become uneasy. As well she should have.

“I value Mr. Abrahams as a friend”, I said, “but I have never felt the same confidence in his assistant Mr. Philip Lee. With good reason as it turned out, for that is not his real name. He is Mr. Philip Lee Glenalmond, a younger son of the aforementioned Mr. Henry Glenalmond, which means that the same family is connected to not one but three events surrounding the same shop in less than a week. That seems mathematically improbable, to put it mildly.”

“This is all words, sir”, Lady Sandbach said haughtily. “If you have nothing better, I am leaving.”

“I do have something better”, I smiled. “This.”

I took the bag out of my pocket and extracted a gaudy jewelled necklace. Frankly I would have thought that there were better-looking pieces of jewellery available for a fraction of the price down Petticoat Lane, but then people with no morals also tended to also have no taste. For which the supreme example of both was staring across the table at me in shock.

“This is the necklace that an associate of your cousin 'stole' from you earlier today, my lady”, I said quietly. “Unfortunately for you I have a number of associates in the world of crime” - I looked pointedly at her - “well, some of the world of crime, and he was able to track down the villain. He has seen the error of his ways and confessed to his role in this ramp.”

“A forced confession?” the lawyer sneered. “That will never stand up in court.”

“On its own maybe not in a court of law”, I said, “but the 'Times' newspaper would doubtless find it quite interesting. The society magazines would, I am sure, fall over each other to get hold of it. As would this lady's fellow members of high society.”

She glared evilly at me.

“I am sorry for Mr. Abrahams in that he will lose his assistant over this”, I said. “Mr. Philip Glenalmond admitted the so-called thieves to the shop, forced the lock from the inside so as to make it look as if the conniving Jewish shopkeeper was 'trying something' on, then oh so bravely chased the men away.”

“I do not see it”, the sergeant said, frowning.

 _(A shameless medical personage would have inserted some clever remark about 'that is because there is no cake attached to it', but that would have been beneath me. It was of course not beneath the shameless medical personage who suggested it to me later! And yes, I had even missed his snark!)_

“I am afraid that there was to be a fourth element to this evil scheme”, I said, “one which would likely ruin Mr. Abrahams completely. You, Lady Sandbach, have a reputation for only ever wearing genuine and expensive jewellery, yet at the same time that Mr. Lee secured his post at the shop you travelled all the way to Oxford to have a copy of your necklace made.”

“There is no crime in that, sir”, the lawyer snarked.

“Indeed”, I said. “However, when I mentioned the thief who confessed to today's supposed snatch theft, I neglected to mention that he very helpfully filled in the last part of your scheme. Because when you left Mr. Abrahams's shop, my lady - _you were watched!”_

 _That_ got a reaction all right. She looked horrified!

“You were seen handing the real necklace over to Mr. Philip Glenalmond who so generously escorted you across the road”, I said, “and then placing the fake one inside the box from the shop. It was the fake one that was stolen, and this evening Mr. Glenalmond was to send a telegram to the police anonymously telling them that the real necklace was still in the shop and he had decided to come clean despite his dastardly employer who had tried to pawn a fake necklace off on a client. The allegation would have ruined him.”

The dratted woman was not the least bit sorry for her actions, and at that moment I was sure that I could not have thought worse of her than I already did.

For once however, I was wrong.

“But sir”, she said leaning forward, “he is a _Jew!”_

I could see that even her lawyer looked askance at that, as did the secretary taking down notes. This 'lady' had just secured herself social ruin, and she fully deserved it.

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“All that because she did not like his religion!” Watson said disgustedly when I told him about it the next day (his client's son had arrived at midnight and I had let him sleep in, telling the surgery that he would not be in till the afternoon). “What is wrong with some people?”

“I know that there are some so-called religions in this world whose practices are not acceptable”, I said, “but there is a world of difference between African or Arabian slave-traders and the likes of Mr. Abrahams. I asked Mrs. Hudson if she would not mind serving breakfast an hour and a half later, given that you only got in at half-past one.”

He smiled at me and rang for our food. I was so pleased that I very generously allowed him to keep three of his rashers. 

All right, two.

Look, I left him one and that was damn generous of me! I was hungry too!

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	6. Case 103: The Adventure Of The Second Stain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. A clear case of murder from three years back – except it now emerges that the man who had been hung for their crime could not possibly have done it! Holmes finds the real criminal and spares several innocent men from having their characters stained for life, while Watson makes an odd discovery about his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mention of suicide.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

The Brackhampton Hall Affair arose out of events that occurred not long after I had left for Egypt, and I remember reading about it in the unbearable heat even down by the river (my job there had long periods of inactivity and the social pages were one of the few things of interest available). The story had not made as much of an impression on me as it might have done, especially as it had all seemed quite straightforward. I also avoided anything of a criminal nature during those years as that reminded me too much of Holmes which... it was a difficult time.

I should also say here that this case was among several which showed a critical facet of Holmes's work that was often overlooked, even by many of my excellent readers. Especially in these days of not always accurate journalism or as one observer rather oddly called it, 'fake news', it was not just a question of 'who done it? but also 'who didn't done it?' (I know full well that a certain blue-eyed someone is rolling their eyes at my mangling of the English language as I write this and he can stop it _right now!)_. 

What I mean, and what this particular case showed, was that finding the guilty party was important not just for the victim's friends and family, and of course for securing justice, but also for those other suspects who stood accused. Six men in a room, one of whom had been shot dead, a second wrongly hung for it – there were three innocent men out there who had likely gone through enough hell during the original investigation, and now once more had to live their lives under a cloud of suspicion until the guilty man was found. And one of the four survivors had a connection to us, which was how Holmes was brought into the matter.

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It was my fellow doctor Peter Greenwood who brought it to my attention as he was brother to one of the four 're-accused'. We were the last two at the surgery after a particularly long and difficult day, and were sitting down with two well-earned whiskies when I observed that he looked worried. Away from his patients he was a merry, light-hearted fellow, so I asked if anything was amiss.

“It is my poor brother Rory”, he said stifling a yawn. “Have you seen the newspaper today?”

“I have not”, I said. “Holmes was looking for an article this morning and he had the pages strewn all over the room before I could get to it. I only hope that he has remembered to reassemble it by this evening!”

He smiled and handed me the 'Times'.

“The main article”, he said.

I read where he had pointed and my eyes widened. The Brackhampton Hall Affair was being reopened!

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It had happened during the bitter autumn of that fateful year of 'Eighty-Three, a tragedy at the Berkshire home of Lord and Lady Milchester. Six gentlemen had adjourned to a room for a game of poker after which they had decided to attempt a séance, it being All Hallow's Eve. It had barely gotten underway however when there had been the sound of a gunshot; the lights had been turned on and Lord Milchester's second son Alaric lay fatally wounded. His last words were to accuse his friend Mr. Nicholas Carter, an American who had been staying with the family and had been sat next to him at the table, of shooting him. The evidence had been overwhelming; Mr. Carter had been tried and found guilty despite his fervent denials but the British government had agreed that as an American citizen the United States should take him back and decide on his final punishment. That punishment had been death by hanging.

The matter had thus seemed to have been resolved and justice done, but just over a month ago an event had occurred in Ireland which would overturn all. A girl called Florence MacMillan who had been a maid at the house on that fateful night had died of consumption†, but before so doing had made a most remarkable confession to her local priest. Ostensibly cleaning the room next to where the gentlemen were sitting, she had used the opportunity to spy on Mr. Nicholas Carter on whom she had developed a crush. Although the room that the gentlemen were in was as I said unlit, it had chanced that her target had been sitting in front of a slightly open door leading into an adjoining room from where there had been a faint light, so her view had been quite good. She had sworn on the Good Book that the American had not pulled a weapon for the attack; it had been the opinion of the priest that she may have seen who did but had been too frightened to say anything. She had requested a move to Lord Milchester's Irish estate, near which her family lived, almost immediately after all the shooting.

“Why does this concern your brother?” I asked.

“Rory is the Milchesters' doctor, and he was one of the six gentlemen in that room”, Peter said gravely. “People will talk, as we both know. For someone in our profession that sort of thing is deadly. It was bad enough after the murder; he lost a lot of patients and they did not all come back even when poor Mr. Nicholas Carter was falsely convicted. You know what people say about no smoke without fire, and how gossip spreads in rural areas. This second stain on his reputation could finish him.”

I more than most people knew about reputations and fully agreed, little knowing that not too far into the future I would experience 'smoke without fire'. With some far-reaching consequences.

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I was still musing the problem of my colleague's unhappy brother when I arrived home that evening to find Sergeant Gregson just leaving our rooms. I should have expected it; it was Mrs. Hudson's baking day and there was most definitely a crumb at the edge of the policeman's mouth. And rather curiously, a guilty look on his face which I thought odd.

“Not a case I'm afraid, doctor”, he said, g;lancing at my friend for some reason. “The local Boys' Home is doing a raffle and I was soliciting a donation from Mr. Holmes.”

“Then I must certainly buy a ticket”, I said fishing into my jacket pocket and extracting a coin. “I had thought that they were doing well for funds, though. I had to treat one of the staff there the other week and I saw that they were repairing parts of the roof, which cannot be cheap.”

Years of working with patients who often told only half-truths had made me alert to moments like this. Holmes and the sergeant both looked as if I had caught them out in some way although my friend covered it better. Gregson took the coin, handed me my ticket, thanked me and all but fled the room. I looked hard at Holmes.

“What is it?” he asked far too innocently.

“There is something that you are not telling me”, I said suspiciously. “If it is to do with a case then of course I understand, but I had hoped....”

“Watson”, he sighed. “I have no case. Unless you wish me to investigate your friend Doctor Greenwood's brother's problems.”

I baulked.

“How did you know about that?” I demanded. He waved a (mercifully reassembled) newspaper at me.

“The article mentions that Doctor Rory Greenwood, one of the four 'new suspects' as they are described, has a brother in practice in London. Were you going to ask for my help?”

“Only if you are not too busy at the moment”, I said.

“I am never too busy to help a friend in need”, he said firmly.

I smiled in gratitude, my questions over Gregson's strange behaviour forgotten. For the moment.

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Our journey to Brackhampton was unusual in that it was to prove another increasingly rare experience of the same broad-gauge travel which had once taken me to meet Holmes in Oxford – gulp! - twelve years back. The Great Western Railway was working hard to convert all its secondary and branch lines to what they sneeringly called 'narrow-gauge' and had pledged to change the main line in some six years' time at most. I smiled at the memory of the old carriage; shortly after that the Company had fully adopted the chocolate and cream livery with which it has become so famous today (1936). Modern express locomotives could do the journey much faster and in greater comfort, but I did remember......

“Remembering being tackled to the floor?” he grinned.

That got rid of the smile. I scowled at him (it was so not a pout!).

We arrived in the pleasant little market town where we were to meet Peter and his brother, shortly before lunch. We met the two doctors in a small cafe in the centre of town where the four of us sat down to a pleasant meal. Rory Greenwood was, I observed, absolutely nothing like Peter; indeed had I not known that they were siblings I should never have suspected it. While my friend was of slightly above the average height and blond, his brother was much taller and dark-haired with something of the air of an undertaker about him, looking much more than the five years advantage he had on his sibling. Then again, if I had been subject to the chain of events that he had been of late I should doubtless have looked equally aged and depressed.

“I had another patient give up on me this morning”, the fellow said mournfully. “Mrs. Green from Riddings Farm sent a message to say that she was cancelling her appointment as she was seeing a doctor in Marlham. That is nearly twice as far from her house, so I am sure it is because of the case being re-opened.”

“Unless we find the true murderer of Lord Alaric then all of you in that room will remain under the shadow of suspicion”, Holmes said, frowning at his coffee as if it had displeased him (it probably had as it had not yet dissolved the spoon he had used to stir it). “Please describe the people who were there that evening, then tell us what happened.”

The doctor thought for a moment.

“There were six of us in the room”, he said. “Myself, Lord Alaric and Mr. Nicholas Carter were three. Carter was an American over here for business; a bit of a buck but a decent enough fellow. He was very charming; I can see why that maid had a crush on him. There was Mr. Thomas Wolstenholme. He is in his fifties now, a local councillor for the town and wants to become its member of parliament. He has been selected for the Liberal Party and has – I should say _had_ \- a good chance of success at the forthcoming election. He must be even more anxious than me to get the whole thing cleared up; there is no way he could stand for office with this hanging over him. Then there was Lord St. John Verwood, who I know a bit better than the others as we live not far from each other. About sixty, a bit of a pompous ass and too fond of his food but otherwise not a bad sort and quite the local philanthropist which is good; not all of his class are. He is a local landowner with a decent reputation; he does not really care what people think of him from what I have seen. Last there was Mr. Jock Ferrers, the psychic. He was in the process of buying a farm off of Lord Alaric's father; being a businessman like Mr. Wolstenholme he too must be eager to get this cleared up. He is quite young, I do not think that he is much past thirty.”

I smiled at his rating 'not much past thirty' as quite young. It was good that he considered my humble thirty-four years of age to be so.....

Damnation, Holmes was giving me a look again! 

“Did any of them have any reason to kill Lord Alaric?” my friend asked, mercifully shelving his maddening mind-reading tendencies.

“None that I can see”, the doctor said scratching his head. “Mr. Carter was a little too proud of his own country but he did not mind being ragged over it. And Lord Alaric was a bit of a young jay but we tend not to shoot people for that, or the British aristocracy would be decimated!”

I smiled at that.

“There had been nine of us at dinner; the six of us, Lord and Lady Milchester and Miss Anne Barstow, their ward....”

“Can you describe them as well, please?” Holmes interrupted. Peter's brother looked as surprised as I felt but did so.

“Lord Milchester is fifty-eight and a member of the House of Lords; he is rarely in good health these days, I am afraid. Very much your typical aristocrat but always pays his bills on time which as a country doctor I have come to appreciate. As I am sure your friend here would agree, many up and down the social spectrum could learn _that_ habit a lot more! Lady Milchester is fifty-seven and pretty much a female version of her husband. A little terrifying when she loses her temper I have been told, although I have never seen it. Miss Barstow is twenty and the daughter of an old classmate of Lady Milchester, a Mrs. Edith Barstow. She and her husband died while visiting India – the husband had a government post out there, I think – and her will requested Lady Milchester to become guardian to Anne. I should add that Alaric was the Milchesters' youngest son; their eldest Wilfred works in the City and the second Ernest runs the estate around here. Both their daughters are married and live somewhere around London.”

“Is she pretty, this Miss Anne Barstow?”

I stared at Holmes in surprise. That seemed an odd question, although judging from the doctor's rapidly reddening face it had perhaps been justified.

“It was bruted about that she had taken the fancy of Lord Alaric but was not receptive to his advances”, the doctor conceded, suddenly finding the table-cloth fascinating for some reason. “I think – and I may be misjudging him here – that the boy was annoyed because his mother would not try to persuade Miss Barstow to accept his suit. Lady Milchester has already settled a more than fair sum on her ward which would enable her to live comfortably on her own, and had made it clear that any choice of husband is entirely her own. She had a small amount from her late parents, and I do know that Lady Milchester had the family lawyer up to settle the money on her in such a way that it would not automatically become her husband's upon any marriage.”

“You are the family doctor?” Holmes asked.

“I am. I was told that they did not like the other local fellow Ralston and used a London doctor, but both those gentlemen retired a few years back and all three became my patients.”

“I see”, Holmes said. “Pray continue with your recital of the events of that fateful evening.”

“After dinner the six of us adjourned to play poker for a while”, the doctor said. “Lord Milchester, who had suffered a hunting accident only a month or so before, retired to his room and his wife went with him although not before adjuring us to continue for as long as we wished. Miss Barstow went to the music-room to play the piano.”

“How do you know that?” Holmes asked.

“The music-room lies directly next to the games-room where the six of us were.”

“Is that the room that the light came from?” Holmes asked.

“I suppose that it must have been. We played for over an hour; Whitmore, the butler, brought us drinks after about forty minutes or so.”

“Who won?”

“Pardon?” the doctor asked, clearly surprised.

“At poker”, Holmes said. “Who was ahead and who was behind?”

The doctor had to think about that for a moment.

“Lord Alaric ended some way down”, he said eventually. “He was quite off his game. I was doing the best I think, although there was little in it. We played with counters rather than money – Lord Milchester is as you may know fervently against all monetary forms of gambling - and only for an hour or so.”

Holmes nodded and the doctor continued with his narrative.

“Just before we finished our game Miss Barstow came through the connecting door and spoke to both Mr. Carter and Lord Alaric”, he said. “It was Alaric who suggested a séance since Mr. Ferrers was with us. Miss Barstow was still in the room at the time but did not like the idea and returned to her playing.”

“I presume that she did not close the door behind her”. Holmes said, “otherwise the maid could not have seen Mr. Carter by the light through it.”

“Yes, she left it open because that room can get quite stuffy”, the doctor said. “We doused the lights and opened the French windows, to create an atmosphere I suppose. It was quite warm for the end of October. Poor St. John tripped when he returned to the table – yes, I remember that there was still a sliver of light from it, but only very faint so Miss Barstow cannot have had the main light on. There was no light from outside at all; the garden out there is all trees and high hedges let alone it was a cloudy night. I remember dreading that we were supposed to hold hands but Ferrers said that that was just an old wives' tale.”

“Were the curtains drawn across the open doors?” Holmes asked.

“Almost completely. There was as I said a slight breeze and I remember them billowing in just a little. We all closed our eyes and we had barely started when there was the flash of a gun going off. It seemed like an age but it must have been under half a minute that Miss Barstow appeared at the door holding a candelabra. Lord Alaric had been shot through the heart and the gun lay in front of young Mr. Carter. As you know it was Lord Alaric's gun and his friend's fingerprints were later found on it, although he denied everything. Unfortunately the jury did not believe him.”

“Is there not a test for gunshot residue these days?” I asked. “Surely that would have cleared Mr. Carter?”

“There is, but he and Lord Alaric had been out shooting on the estate earlier that day”, the doctor explained. “I myself had thought that a bit odd; it was a foul day with one of those heavy fogs that never lifts, but then Lord Alaric was mad keen on his guns.”

“Why did no-one turn on the light in your room?” Holmes asked.

“It was one of those gas-lights that need a flame to get it started”, the doctor explained. “Ferrers was trying to find a match when Miss Barstow opened the door.”

Holmes pressed his fingers together in thought. I wondered what his next question would be. 

It was not what I expected.

“I cannot take this case.”

The three of us looked at him in shock.

“Why?” I asked.

Holmes looked sternly at both the Greenwoods. 

“Gentlemen, your profession entails people telling you things and you then making a recommendation based on that information”, he said sharply. “So does mine. But when the information is deficient or misleading then the recommendation is likely to be wrong or even counter-productive. Doctor Greenwood, you have not been straight with me.”

The man gasped.

“I assure you Mr. Holmes....”

“You are withholding a key piece of information. I can hardly put the puzzle together if there is a piece missing, can I?”

 _How did he do that?_ Peter's brother sighed.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Because I can picture a sequence of events that will explain perfectly what happened that evening”, Holmes said, “except that something is missing. Two things in all but I suspect that you can only supply one of them, although you have inadvertently hinted at the other. _What did you see happen earlier that fateful day?”_

The doctor shook his head.

“I do not wish to speak ill of the dead”, he said mulishly.

“Doctor”, Holmes said firmly, “unless we find the killer of Lord Alaric Milchester then the only things that will be dead is your livelihood and likely those of the other innocent parties in that room. A number of totally innocent people including your good self deserve to live their lives free of the cloud of suspicion. Now tell me what you saw.”

I thought that he was going to continue to hold back but Holmes's azure gaze was his undoing. He sighed heavily.

“Miss Barstow kissing Mr. Carter”, he admitted. 

Holmes thought again.

“Are there any other doctors in the town?” he asked.

“No”, the doctor said. “Ralston still lives here though and I know there are a few people he tends to even though he is retired; you know how some people do not like change. Brackhampton is a small place and mine is the only practice now. But if this drags on I may have to sell up, for what little I would get just now.”

“I do not think that it will go on much further”, Holmes said and I saw the hope light up in the doctor's eyes. “Gentlemen, we have two further calls to make in your fair town then I hope that the case may be resolved. Hopefully we can get both of them in today for I think to my own astonishment I am actually missing the mess that is London Town!”

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Holmes stopped at the town's main post-office to buy a stamp and came out with directions to our next stop. It turned out to be a small white cottage with a beautifully well-kept garden, the home of the retired Doctor Charles Ralston who lived there with his sister Marsha. She was a formidable lady and it took some time for even Holmes's charm to sidle past her defences. However she was soon bringing us tea and refreshments and giving Holmes that awful simpering look that almost all women regardless of their age or marital status (or even the nearby presence of a husband!) seemed wont to do.

_How did he do that as well?_

“Thank you for agreeing to see us, doctor”, my friend said with something that was several bacon rashers too close to being an annoying smirk.

“The famous detective and his medical cohort-cum-scribe”, Doctor Ralston smiled. “Am I to assume that you arrival in our little town is connected with the newspaper speculation about Lord Alaric's true killer?”

“Indeed sir”, Holmes said. “I appreciate of course that doctor-patient confidentiality which Watson here goes on about _ad nauseam”_ (I scowled at him for that totally uncalled for remark) “precludes you from revealing any patient details, but I was hoping that you could prove or disprove a theory of mine. I do not wish for details; a simple yes or no will suffice.”

He handed the doctor a folded piece of paper which the old man read. His face turned white as he did so and his hand shook.

“You... you understand the consequences of this, sir?” he said, his voice breaking as he spoke.

“I do, sir”, Holmes said. “But I also understand the consequences of doing nothing, which in this case are worse. Innocent people risk having their lives ruined by gossip, and only the truth can set them free.”

The old man sighed and handed back the paper.

“It is true”, he said. “I so wish that it were not.”

“Thank you”, Holmes said quietly, standing and indicating that we should leave.

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“What was all that about?” I asked as we walked to get a cab.

“I did not think that I would be glad to hear of a fellow man dying”, he said enigmatically. “Come. We must visit Brackhampton Hall.”

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Lucy, Lady Milchester received us with the manners one would have expected of the British aristocracy. 

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Holmes”, she said, and I detected a hint of wariness in her voice.

“Did you know?” Holmes said.

I started at the question which seemed blunt to the point of rudeness, but before I could object our hostess answered.

“Yes”, she said averting her eyes.

“How?” Holmes asked.

“That young American was about as subtle as the rest of his countrymen!” she said with a small smile. “I caught him and Anne on at least two occasions before, or would have done had I not doubled back out of the room that they were in at the time. If I saw them I am sure that.... others did too.”

Holmes nodded.

“How is your husband?” he asked gently.

“Very ill”, she answered. “That second fall almost did for him. Doctor Greenwood says that he will not last more than a few months.”

Holmes nodded. She looked at me.

“Has he told you everything yet?” she asked.

“He always keeps me in the dark until the last minute!” I said, not at all sulkily. 

She smiled at that and turned back to Holmes.

“I saw him earlier that evening”, she said. “It is partly my fault that that poor innocent young man is dead, and when my time comes I shall answer for it. I saw Alaric showing him the guns, and that they went out for a morning shoot on such a bad day. I wondered, but I said nothing. He was my youngest son, and I loved him.”

“Did you know about Doctor Ralston?” Holmes asked.

“What about Doctor Ralston?” I asked. “I am all at sea here!”

Holmes looked at Lady Milchester almost as if he was seeking permission for something. She nodded and he turned back to me.

“Lord Alaric was not killed”, he explained. “He committed suicide. Except he also committed murder.”

I stared at him, completely lost.

“Some time before the dark events of that terrible night, Lord Alaric has started to feel unwell”, he said. “He knows that his parents never use Doctor Ralston so he goes to him. He is diagnosed with a fatal disease and only given a short time to live. Presumably he is told that the disease cannot be passed on so he fixes his hopes on wooing his mother's ward Miss Barstow and having a son by her, in order that he can live on that way.”

“But, he then discovers, Miss Barstow has eyes only for the dashing young American Mr. Nicholas Carter. She would choose a foreigner over an English lord! He is angered beyond all measure and plots a terrible revenge – the murder of the man he calls a friend. Lord Alaric Milchester may be the one to be found shot dead, but it will be his rival in love Mr. Nicholas Carter who will be executed for a murder that he did not commit – and alas! for it only to emerge too late that he could not possibly have committed.”

I was shocked.

“He builds up their friendship, takes the man out shooting to get gunshot residue on his hands and shares his private gun collection with him. Of course this is solely to get his rival's fingerprints on the murder weapon. He even manages to slip the key to the gun cupboard into the man's pocket where it is discovered the following day. Further damning evidence against him.”

“He has arranged that Mr. Ferrers is invited for the All Hallow's Eve dinner and it is perfectly natural for him to suggest a séance. As soon as the room is dark and everyone had shut their eyes, he acts. He shoots himself knowing that Mr. Carter's fingerprints will be found on the gun, and that the gun cupboard key will be found in his pocket. His 'friend' is as good as hung.”

I stared at him in silence. Lady Milchester stood and walked slowly over to the fireplace.

“You know what I am going to ask of you, Mr, Holmes”, she said', her voice unsteady.

“You have it”, he said. “The open window will help; I can use my connections to suggest to the press some 'evidence' about a mystery gunman climbing the balcony. Something about your son's debts to the wrong sort of person will further muddy things. As I am sure you can guess, they will move onto some other story once it has been established that an outsider committed this murder. Hopefully the truth may never come out, or at least not while there are those alive to be hurt by it.”

“Thank you”, she said quietly.

“We are sorry to have troubled you”, he said, sounding sincere as always. “We will take our leave now, Lady Milchester. Good evening.”

He ushered me out.

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“So”, I said. “Suicide.”

“Suicide with murder”, he said. “It was only chance that exposed the truth although nearly ruining the lives and careers of four innocent men in the process. Including your friend's brother.”

“Poor Lord Alaric”, I said. “Hating someone enough to want to kill them.”

“'First do no harm'”, he said. 

“The Hippocratic Oath”, I said. “I do not think that I could ever hate someone enough to kill them.”

To my surprise, my friend shook his head.

“Everyone has their trigger, doctor”, he said firmly. “Everyone has something, or more usually someone that they care enough about to kill for. Even doctors. We are each and every one of us only human.”

I thought about that as our cab took us back to the station and the train home. Who did I feel strongly enough about, if anyone, that I would kill for? Stevie of course. And.... perhaps someone else?

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We returned to London in silence and were quiet all evening. I was supposed to have had the next day off but there had been an outbreak of whooping-cough at the Boys' Home that Gregson had been fund-raising for and I was called out to take a look at a particularly serious case. The Matron of the Home insisted on being present during my examination (much to my young patient's mortification, I might add!) and was clearly keen to hear my prognosis.

“I can find nothing else wrong with young Albert”, I said ruffling the boy's hair. “I think he must just be naturally more susceptible to the strain that is running through the place. The cough apart he is in very good condition.”

I knew from sometimes bitter experience how far too many of these places worked. The late great Charles Dickens had been cuttingly accurate in his portrayal of trustees who took charitable donations for their charges and then lived the high life, leaving the boys or girls in their 'care' starving and ill-clothed. But Albert like all the boys I had examined here was clearly both well-fed and happy. Wonder of wonders, even that terminally snail-paced team of British workmen had finished the repairs to the roof. Miracles did happen, apparently!

“And we all know who we have to thank for that, Albert, don't we?” she said, in that irritating voice that I knew was making the boy cringe as much as I myself was. Albert nodded and glanced longingly at the door. I could empathize.

“The people who fund this place”, I said closing my bag,

“Dear Mr. Holmes, of course”, she said as if it was obvious. 

“Sir Edward”, I said.

She looked at me in astonishment and flushed bright red. I stared back at her, puzzled. 

_“Not_ Sir Edward?” I said, and if anything she got even redder. “Matron....”

“Not my place to say sir”, she said quickly, almost dragging Albert out the door. I stared after her in astonishment.

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I arrived home to find Gregson waiting for me – as if you have to ask what day it was! - but no Holmes.

“He is with the Family, sir”, the sergeant said. “He said that he will be back by half-past.”

I looked at the clock and saw that I had at most ten minutes to wait. 

“I had a strange encounter at your Boys' Home today”, I said conversationally. “The Matron said that 'Mr. Holmes' was funding the place but when I mentioned Sir Edward's name she went very red and....”

I stopped. Gregson was looking as caught out as the Matron had earlier. Like Albert earlier he looked hopefully at the door, but I was partly blocking the way and not inclined to move.

“Tell me what is going on, sergeant”, I demanded. He swallowed nervously.

“She told you truth, sir”, he said. “Mr. Holmes does fund the place. Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

I stared at him in shock.

“The money he has from his family pays for this place and he spends some of his savings plus most what he gets from the cases on the Home, sir”, Gregson explained. “I am sorry. I thought he might have told you.”

I heard the distinctive sound of footsteps and tuneless humming.

“Apparently not”, I managed, and before Holmes came through the door I made my escape to my room to change, two thoughts in my mind.

_Why had he not told me? And after all the mess that had led to my grandfather's disgrace being concealed or at least not told to me, what else was he keeping secret?_

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_Notes:_   
_† Now called tuberculosis, a bacterial infection of the lungs._

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	7. Interlude: Arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. For once, it's the government that gets shafted!

_[Narration by Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles, Esquire]_

I'm not religious at all (though I'd never dare tell the wife that) but sometimes I think the Lord arranges things a bit.... well, not as good as He could, perhaps. Not that I'm complaining; for a black fellow I'm damn lucky to be where I am today specially considering all that I went through to start with.

I met Bet four years back and she made clear pretty quick that she was uneasy with me making money by selling my body, even if it was in Mr. Kerr's houses which are the best. I was so damn lucky that his stepbrother Mr. Holmes who'd rescued me from the horrors of the Tankerville Club three years before that and paid for me to have time in the country to recover, also got me a job as a fruiterer. But it doesn't pay anything like what I get for obliging a fellow man, and as I said Mr. Kerr doesn't have anyone back who can't mind their manners, customers or staff. 

My wonderful wife was however prepared for me to have one 'steady' client, and that was how I ended up with Mr. Holmes's sort of cousin Mr. Lucifer Garrick (they weren't blood-related because Mr. Lucifer was Mr. Kerr's cousin, as far as I understood it). Mr. Lucifer was thirty-four at the time while I was still just nineteen but somehow we just _clicked_. Despite his working in some stuffy government office he had the same military figure as Mr. Holmes's brother Mr. Carlyon who's in the Army (weirdly they looked pretty much the same; which was odd because as I said they weren't related). And Bet was a lot happier (or at least less unhappy) than if I'd been doing It with lots of different men, which was good.

The only downside was that Mr. Lucifer and me, we clearly felt something for each other which in the normal run of things is a complete no-no. Two years back when Bet and I had young Ben.... well, I never did any good at formal stuff and I was a wreck after both the birth and the christening, so Mr. Lucifer let me work it off on him. Once he'd recovered and was able to stand up he said he'd be putting money aside for each of our kids for them to have when they reached twenty-one, which was great of him. Plus he was so damn considerate, always checking to see if Bet and I had anything planned before asking me for some time with him. Not that I didn't enjoy fucking the government over for once; Lord knows they do it enough to the country!

Right now there was a great pleasure in marking the arrival of our third child and first daughter Elizabeth by reducing the hunky specimen impaled on the Banjax to a gasping wreck. That was before he saw the pile of 'goodies' that Mr. Holmes had given me when I had called by earlier, with a request to 'maybe try to leave my cousin in one piece if the mood took me'.

I tried... well, sort of. But fucking a fellow like Mr. Lucifer until he passed out and just lay there stuck on the Banjax - _I was the man!_

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	8. Case 104: The Adventure Of The Last Rebel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Twenty-one years after the last shots in the American Civil War, there is a potentially deadly coda in England as Holmes is asked to keep something (else) from Watson - by his brother Randall of all people!

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

I do not normally consider myself either lucky or unlucky, except perhaps for being blessed with Watson in my life. So when Gregson told me that my friend had discovered about my funding the local Boys' Home I thought it an annoyance but little more. I had however miscalculated, and badly. Our relationship was definitely strained in the days after his discovery and I suppose that someone of my great intelligence really should have been able to work out why. 

It was my stepbrother Campbell who eventually put me right when he called round for the first time since my return.

“Balin and Balan said that the good doctor was definitely 'off' when he treated them this morning”, he said. “Is something wrong?”

I told him what had happened. He knew about the Boys' Home and was clearly annoyed that I had not told Watson about it.

“It is all about trust”, he explained, “like back at the house. Gentlemen have to know that they can trust us absolutely and that we would never use our knowledge of their 'preferences' against them or worse, sell it on for profit. If that trust were ever lost we would be just another molly-house.”

I knew how true that was. Considering the sordid nature of his business it was spoken of highly by everyone who knew of it.

“So?” I said. He looked sharply at me.

“Your last attempt to keep things from him led all the way to Egypt”, he said shortly. “Do you _really_ want a repeat of that?”

I stared at him in shock.

“That is not the same at all!” I protested,

“Yes it is”, he countered. “As I said, it all comes back to trust. Three years apart and he has built up his trust in you again only to find out you have gone and lied to him, or at least not told him the whole truth about something. He will do what any man in his situation would; start wondering what other little details you have 'forgotten to mention'. And at this of all times, just when he is home and happy.”

“He is happy?” I asked. 

“You do emotions like he does feelings!” he smiled. “He saw Colt the other week” - he saw my raised eyebrow - “at Tom's house because apparently he feared that his lover might have ruptured something; luckily he had not - and Colt said that he was smiling all the time. Yes he is happy - or rather he was until he went and found out that you have been keeping things from him again. You are treating him very badly.”

I felt reproved, a feeling made worse by the certain if annoying knowledge that he was right. Brothers! Why did I have to have so many of the damn things?

“What can I do?” I asked anxiously.

“Very little”, he said. “You have damaged his trust a second time, and even though there was no outright lie he will still feel very hurt. You must be as honest with him as possible from now on, or you may lose his friendship for good.”

I stared at him in horror.

“That”, I said firmly, “I will _never_ allow to happen!”

Unfortunately events were already in train that would lead to me being asked to keep something else from my friend. And by the most unlikely person imaginable!

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A few days later Watson, very unusually for his work at that time, was called upon to spend some days with a client in the resort of Cromer, Norfolk, just along the coast from Mundesley-on-Sea where we had helped Mr. Teledamus Newton find his true love in Mr. Alan Douglas. The two of them were now back in Norfolk and my half-brother – no, he was no longer that thanks to the convoluted mess that was my family, but he was still Watson's cousin – had again assured me in his last telegram that he was happy if damn sore! 

_He was certainly both annoying and inconsiderate enough to be blood! Why could even the family members that I liked not understand that there was sharing and then there was oversharing?_

Watson's Norfolk jaunt concerned a friend of the McConnaugheys whose philanthropy largely funded the Bloomsbury Practice, although I had quietly arranged that if for some reason they withdrew or moved away then certain other sources would ensure that my friend kept his job. The current Lord McConnaughey's niece Mrs. Blatherwycke was expecting her first child and in Watson's words his patient was 'almost as much of a feather-head as her useless husband so Lord help the poor child!'. I would be minus my friend for the last three weeks of the pregnancy, possibly more or less depending, and I must say that we shook hands and embraced each other in a most professional and manly-like manner when I saw him off at Liverpool Street Station. 

The fact that we did it for so long that the guard blew his whistle and Watson had to clamber into a moving carriage was just one of those things. And the look that he gave me as the train pulled out – I damn well nearly ran after him!

I spent a mournful first few days of my friend's absence but cheered up considerably on the Friday when he said that the new arrival had decided to cut short his parents' haverings and was a healthy baby boy. My friend would be staying with the new parents over the weekend and then returning to me on the Monday. I was very pleased with the world just then.

As if to prove Watson's oft-stated belief that when good things happened bad ones were hurrying up after them or at least taking a number to wait in line, barely ten minutes later saw a most unwelcome arrival to my door. A certain lounge-lizard of a brother whose only redeeming factor was that Mother was still annoyed over the business with Mr. Rider and, best of all, she wrote more when she was upset and had demanded that Randall help her by listening to her 'efforts'. My pestilential brother would be watching his step for some time, I hoped.

“We have a rather delicate little problem”, he said, “and I need your help on it.”

“I am not some government functionary for you to command as and whenever it suits you”, I said coolly. “What, pray, is this 'rather delicate little problem'?”

He clearly picked up on my unwelcome tone but chose to ignore it. No surprise there.

“Twenty-one years ago the Americans stopped fighting each other when the Southern states were defeated”, he said. “The victory was absolute, which is rare in diplomatic circles. Some of the rebels fled abroad, including one who came here.”

“You are not saying that the United States government seriously considers a single Southerner a danger _this_ far on in time?” I asked incredulously. “What harm could one man do?”

“Not so much to them as to us”, Randall said. “Relations across the Great Water remain strained especially as the British government turned a blind eye to the building of Southern ships during the war, even if we did pay reparations afterwards. President Cleveland is peaceable enough so relations with him are all right, but there are many in his administration who would like to sir up trouble between our nations for their own ends.”

“They see this last rebel as their opportunity so to do”, I said, sighing at the vapidity of human nature. “Who is the fellow?”

I like to think that my abilities such as they are were why I spotted that most infinitesimal of pauses before my brother answered. My suspicions of him only increased and they had been pretty high to start with.

“His name appropriately enough is Mr. Robert Lee”, he said. “No relation to the general, not even ex-army as far as we can tell but a firm believer in 'Dixie' as he calls it for some strange reason. He flies the Southern flag at his house in Smitham, Surrey, which his American neighbour across the road finds most offensive.”

“If said neighbour finds a piece of cloth offensive then he is in the wrong country”, I said frostily. “Feel free to remind him that other countries _are_ available. What further heinous and terrible crimes has this Mr. Robert Lee committed, pray? Has he taken to feeding the local ducks oversized pieces of bread perhaps, or worn some item of clothing that has given his oversensitive neighbour an attack of the vapours?”

Randall scowled at my witticisms. Watson would have found them hilarious, I was sure.

“He has links to at least one Irish terrorist grouping”, my unwelcome guest said, “and there may be more. I would like you to go down and investigate him.”

“I cannot leave the capital just now”, I said. “Watson will be home on Monday.”

“Oh yes”, he sneered. “Got to wait for the good wifey!”

I gave him a long look then stood up and crossed to my desk. Reaching over, I removed my revolver and turned back to face my unwanted guest, who had gone rather pale.

“You will write the address of this Mr. Lee on the notepad”, I said coldly, “and then you will leave.”

“You cannot seriously be thinking of bringing _him_ in on this!” Randall protested. “It is a matter of national security!”

“I would trust Watson with my life”, I said firmly. “You, Randall, I would not trust with tuppence to do some shopping! Now you have one minute before I decide to put in some practice with this fully loaded weapon.”

He wrote something quickly on the notepad and moved smartly from the room. His first wise move of the day.

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The more I thought about it, the stranger Randall's decision to bring me in on this case seemed. I could probably find out all sorts of things about this fellow but I strongly doubted that any of them would be enough to have him deported – judges tended to be temperamental over such things, I knew, especially if they felt that they were being pushed - and the British government was (as always) in enough of a mess elsewhere to not need to worry about such trivialities. Yet Randall did not do trivial things. It was all very odd, and I did not like odd.

I decided to send round to Swordland's in order to see if they knew anything of the fellow, or might find something out for me. Miss St. Leger proved as efficient as always; a short report arrived just after eight that evening. Mr. Lee, now sixty-seven, had been a financial supporter of the Confederacy during the war but had been too unwell to actually do any fighting, and was indeed not in the best of health even now. He had been approached for funds by one Irish separatist grouping as his great-grandmother had been Irish; he had refused and that had been that. Yet another not-rare example of my brother being economical with the truth (I did not bother to feign surprise).

One interesting fact that did emerge however was that the American government had made a major effort to seize Mr. Lee's assets shortly before he had left for England, but he had outwitted them and very publicly so. The American newspapers had made much of the case and it had damaged the careers of several in government at the time. Knowing that the United States surely had its own Randalls who would not take such a defeat well, I did not like that at all.

I slept little that night and by Saturday morning I had come to a decision. At an unconscionably early hour of the morning – I was somehow able to function when inspired by Watson and bless dear Mrs. Hudson for somehow having a bacon breakfast ready for me! – I went first to see Mr. Gregor Kuznetsov hoping to catch him at his new house not far from us in Mayfair. He had married a few years back and now had two sons of his own, and despite the ungodly hour was pleased to see me although even he was surprised at my request.

“I normally have three people who I could suggest for such a task”, he said, “but I know that one is up in Scotland right now and a second is about to get married. I shall approach the third however and I am sure that she will make herself available. Also she is the best of them.”

“Thank you”, I said.

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Next I proceeded to Liverpool Street Station to catch the first express of the day. I was fortunate in that this train went to Norwich, my next port of call, and that there were frequent trains from that town to Cromer. The Great Eastern Railway did not let me down and my train pulled into Thorpe Station right on time. The local hospital was like Mr. Kuznetsov rather surprised at what I was asking but as usual enough sovereigns in the right pockets worked wonders. Money may not buy happiness, but it most definitely rents some swift co-operation.

I left Norwich with a companion and we did not have to wait long for a train to Cromer, which made good time to the breezy and popular little seaside resort. I was again lucky that Watson's assignment was at a house quite close to the station but we still took a cab as I did not wish to waste a moment. If we were quick then we could catch the express back.

Strand House was a nondescript large property on the seafront, to which were duly admitted. Watson was up with the new mother just then so I asked to see the new father Mr. Ivo Blatherwycke who, I have to say, was as much of a ditherer as my friend had said he was!

“This is _most_ irregular, Mr. Holmes”, he said plaintively. “My dear wife is only just recovered from a most traumatic birth and you wish to remove her doctor?”

 _Hardly traumatic_ , I thought, as Watson had told me that it had been incredibly quick. Also that the excuse for a man before me had fainted when his wife's contractions had started. And again when he had been told that he was a father.

“I would not ask had I not been called upon to investigate a Case of The Greatest National Importance”, I said. “Critically, one which requires a high degree of medical knowledge from someone who is absolutely trustworthy. It concerns a relative of our dear Queen herself who.... I must be discreet but Her Majesty would _not_ be amused if I failed to resolve the matter for want of my trusted colleague. However, since the government is fully funding all expenses in this case I made a point of demanding only the best for your good lady wife if I am to deprive her of my friend Doctor Watson. Doctor Kent here is _renowned_ in the field of post-pregnancy care and has attended everything up to and including royalty, so I insisted that if you agreed to release my friend then they must pay full two weeks of his attendance on Mrs. Blatherwycke, more if needed.”

He softened at that. The mention of royalty was a stretch but it often did the trick with recalcitrant clients. It was Her Majesty's government after all, even if we were talking the bog-end of it (as in Randall).

“I suppose that that is just about acceptable”, he said sniffily. “I will send your friend down to you.”

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Watson was delighted to see me, and once we were on the train back to London I filled him in on the case.

“Is there something medically wrong with this Southern gentleman?” he asked. I knew he had mixed feelings about the American Civil War; like me he was strongly against slavery but he also believed in the right of self-determination for people which had clearly been ignored by the North.

“He is in poor health although that is not surprising given his age”, I said, “but unless we act he will likely be dead by Monday.”

He looked at me in shock.

“How can you know that?” he asked.

“Because I know the way that governments work”, I said sadly, “and worse, I know the likes of my brother Randall. He sees this Mr. Lee as a nuisance that has to be removed. Permanently.”

“He will have him killed?” he asked, clearly shocked. I shook my head.

“He is smarter than that”, I said, “much as he frequently gives the impression that he is not. By bringing me in on the case he will have been seen to have made his best efforts to have kept Mr. Lee alive, and it will just be unfortunate that when we go to Smitham on Monday someone will have murdered the fellow only hours before our arrival. So near yet so far!”

He looked at me shrewdly. I was not sure whether his picking up on at least some of my abilities was a good thing or not, especially when he could read me like that.

“I would wager that the pest demanded that you not to bring me in on this?” he asked. 

I nodded.

“He believes that since I will not act without you then I cannot be in Surrey before Monday”, I said. “I am sure that he has used his contacts across the Great Water to inform the American authorities of that, and has suggested that if one of their 'sleeper' agents in England were to murder Mr. Lee just hours before my arrival, the British government would obligingly 'fail' to find them.”

He was shocked by this. I really wished that I had been too, but then I knew my brother.

“Will not Randall know of my early return to London?” he worried. I grinned.

“You are not going to London”, I said. “You are going to Surrey!”

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What with having to go all the way to Norfolk and then to suburban Surrey, it was late indeed when I got back to Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson informed me that a lady had called and left her card and would wait on me any time the next day. I smiled to myself when her niece mentioned that the visitor was 'one of the scariest ladies that she had ever seen', which description made our landlady frown at her. 

The girl was more right than she could have known. Despite looking every inch the typical Victorian nanny, Mrs. Thomasina Kyndley was one of the most efficient assassins in London Town.

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Two days later I met Randall at Victoria Station for the train down to Smitham. He was clearly surprised when I turned up alone.

“No Watson?” he asked, looking around as if he expected my friend to spontaneously appear out of thin air.

“His patient had an early delivery”, I said, “and he decided to use his extra time off to visit a friend of his down in Brighton. I wired him the address and he said that he will travel up to meet us at the house. He should be there about the same time as us.”

As I had known it would that news gave my brother some alarm although he hid it fairly well, and he slipped away in the station to send a telegram doubtless warning that there might be someone at our destination earlier than expected. He could not know that the people on the other end of that telegram were not exactly in a position to do much just now.

We took the train down to Smitham and then a cab to Dixie House which lay on the edge of the rather attractive village. I noted the huge American flag outside the house across and a little way down; presumably that was the overly sensitive neighbour who was only disturbed by _some_ coloured pieces of cloth.

“I do not see your friend anywhere”, Randall complained.

“Watson may be in the house already”, I said. “I told him not to wait for us.”

My brother looked even paler, although not as pale as about five seconds later when two shots rang out from the house before us. 

“Watson!” I yelled, sprinting up to the place. 

“Come back, Sher!” Randall yelled. “The shooter is still in there!”

I ignored him and burst through the door which I was not surprised to note had been left slightly ajar. Dixie House was a sizeable property and we charged into a large hallway with several doors leading from it and a large staircase ascending to the first floor. The place was almost eerily silent – until just as Randall caught me up there was the sound of a door being slammed somewhere. I rushed off into a side-room that turned out to be a lounge and Randall followed me.

“Watson!” I yelled again, rushing over to where a leg could be seen protruding from behind a screen.

As I had hoped my movements distracted my brother as I quickly checked over my friend, wincing at the red on the floor beneath him. I took several deep breaths and then stood up and glared darkly at Randall.

“He will live”, I said sourly. “No thanks to _you!”_

“Sher....”

I took out my own gun and looked pointedly at my brother, who began to edge away towards the door. 

“You... you would not....”

The first shot caught the frankly horrible standing lamp which presumably was meant to have been some sort of animal on its hind legs, so it was not totally wasted. My brother yelped in fear and made it to the door before the second, which was only inches away from his arm. He fled the house, moving faster than I had ever seen him go in his wretched life.

 _Then_ I laughed!

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It was about twenty minutes later. Mr. Lee, Mrs. Kyndley, Watson and I were sat discussing the events of that busy day. The lady assassin did indeed look every inch the Victorian nanny; I would have found it amusing that both the other gentlemen were visibly sitting up straighter had I not been doing exactly the same. 

“A most amusing conceit”, she said sipping at her sherry. “Assassinating an assassin is something new, even for me. Poor Mr. Cleveland will of course be _mortified_ at the direct removal of one of his agents but alas! one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

I smiled at her use of one of Randall's favourite phrases. I would mention that to him later – when I showed him copies of the papers which proved the American government's involvement in the assassination attempt against one of their own citizens. On foreign soil. Oops!

“The American president will be stamping down heavily on his spy agency after they allowed one of their agents to get killed while trying to kill an American abroad”, I agreed, wincing at the red on Watson's shirt even though I knew full well that it was fake blood. “I dare say that there will be a cover-up but, Mr. Lee, I am sure my tiresome brother will be letting your countrymen know that any further attempts against your life would be swiftly followed by some _most_ unpleasant revelations in the London newspapers. And soon after the swift dismissal of several high-up people across the Pond.”

“I find it _quite_ distasteful that all this was with the connivance of our own government”, Mrs. Kyndley said. “That brother of yours is a Most Unpleasant Personage, Mr. Holmes. I might be tempted to offer a discount if you ever get really tired of him.”

Watson opened his mouth to state the obvious but caught my expression and blushed. All right, I was also tempted but.... why was I objecting again?

“I may also call on that neighbour of yours before I leave”, Mrs. Kyndley said. “He is I am sorry to say not much better. He was sat in his garden when I passed earlier and, shockingly even in this day and age, was wearing only a _vest and shorts!_ We really cannot be having with such behaviour in _England!”_

“I am grateful to y'all”, Mr. Lee said, his Southern accent clear despite his two decades in England. “You sure they will not try again?”

“I shall also point out to Randall that I might mention his mendacity to Mother”, I said. “That will terrify him even more than the American government; it would me! Although I may be deprived of his presence for a while as he believes that I am furious with him over my friend the doctor's terrible injuries, and would likely shoot him if I saw him.”

“How bad can we make them out to have been?” Watson asked.

Mrs. Kyndley shook her finger reprovingly at him, and he blushed most prettily.

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	9. Case 105: The End Of The Peer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Holmes thwarts the plotting of a modern-day bad baron as he and Watson visit one of the most depressing places on Planet Earth.  
> Mentioned also as the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis and the Netherlands-Sumatra Company.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

I had never thought the career of a consulting detective was particularly glamorous or that I, as the mere recorder of my friend's more memorable cases, should expect to visit exotic and/or exciting places. Indeed several of his cases were solved without his ever having left Baker Street, such as our recent case with the jeweller Mr. Abrahams. But this adventure took us somewhere that, I have to say, deserved a position on the list of the most depressing places on Planet Earth. Never mind the Sahara Desert, the North Pole or some barren island in the wide Pacific Ocean; Port Victoria Hotel in Kent was right up (or down) there. 

This was also the case when by his actions Holmes prevented a disappearance, told a bare-faced lie, and exposed one of the more unusual criminal types that we would ever encounter. Oh, and said sorry. To me.

Incidentally, apologies for the title of this story. 'Someone' suggested it.

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“How do you feel about who?”

I stared at my friend across the breakfast table where he was as usual busy consuming half a pig's worth of bacon (yes, his and half of mine). Of late my workload had been much heavier than usual, the closure of the rival surgery nearby having increased our number of patients while the successful treatment of a prominent member of high society had led them to recommend several of their friends. It meant more money in the bank – at least once the moneys owing had been extracted from the wallets of certain Scrooge-like patients - but also long hours and precious little rest. When poor Peter (Greenwood) had to his eternal embarrassment fallen asleep while with a patient one day, the McConnaugheys had finally been alerted to the situation and had insisted that each doctor take a full week off to rest, two locums (loci?) being brought in to help spread the workload until a new permanent doctor could be appointed. As the most junior full-time doctor there I had had to wait until last, but finally my week had come around. Hurrah!

Our recent case in Surrey where I had faked my own injuries to help Holmes resolve matters had partly repaired our recently strained relationship somewhat but I was still fretful over the orphanage business and the fact that my friend had been keeping something from me. A small but persistent voice at the back of my mind kept wondering what else might be lurking ready to once again destroy my life, which with my luck was all too possible. I could not lose him again; the very thought chilled me to the bone. 

“Who?” I asked, dragging myself away from some unhappy thoughts. 

Holmes indicated the letter that he had been reading.

“This is from Mr. Peregrine Esking, better known as the Earl of Halstow and Cliffe”, he said. “He requests my services to investigate ongoing threats to kidnap his sole son and heir Egbert, Baron Rotherhithe.”

I frowned.

“Is it not rather odd to _threaten_ to kidnap someone?” I wondered. “As you have said before, the advantage usually lies with the criminal in that they can choose the time and place of their attack. Forewarning the potential victim's father seems to negate that.”

“This situation is somewhat unusual”, he said. “He asks me to spend some days at a new hotel that he has invested in, a place called Port Victoria on the Hoo Peninsula.”

So that was what he had meant by 'who'. Hoo the spur of land, not who the person who..... look, _I_ knew what I meant and that had better damn well not be another knowing smile!

“I have read of it”, I said, looking suspiciously at him. “It only started up a few years ago. The South Eastern Railway opened it not long back as a rival to Queenborough across the Medway. They described it at the time as 'the beginnings of a great port'.”

I have mentioned before the terrible state of railways in Kent at this time, as the rival South Eastern and London, Chatham & Dover Railway Companies indulged in a building war to try to force each other into bankruptcy. Ironically there had recently been something of an armistice in which they had agreed to pool receipts for the major Channel Ports but the 'Chatham' had breached the spirit if not the letter of that agreement with their branch to Queenborough and Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, both with connections to the Continent and much closer to London than Dover or Felixstowe. With no legal redress available the South Eastern had retaliated with a flanking attack, backing the nominally independent Hundred of Hoo Railway in providing an even quicker route from London. That was why they had selected 'Port Victoria' as the name for what they hoped would be a rival to nearby Queenborough since the latter port had been named after Philippa, wife of King Edward III.

People find this sort of railwayana interesting so a certain someone can stop rolling his eyes right now!). “It does not sound a promising venture”, Holmes said, smiling again in a way that likely to leave him bacon-less some time soon, “but it does mean several days by the sea. I know that this is your long-awaited holiday but... would you be interested in accompanying me?” He looked as if he actually thought that I might refuse. I smiled warmly. “I would be delighted, my friend”, I said. He beamed at me. I had definitely missed that smile. 

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Several hours later I was musing again on the price of friendship. We had arrived at Port Victoria and settled into our rooms which were comfortable enough. But the location... well! 

We had changed at Gravesend to a little branch-line train which had taken an hour to rumble its way across the apparently empty Hoo Peninsula (think a marginally warmer version of Siberia but without the exciting parts!) before drawing to a halt on the pier itself. The place had been wreathed in Thames fog and had looked utterly unwelcoming. Judging from the guest-book it was not exactly overbooked, there being only three sets of names and addresses above ours.

Holmes had wished to meet our client as soon as possible but unfortunately His Grace had taken his son out for a walk (Lord alone knows where; we were at the end of a damn pier!). Fortunately we were still settling into our rooms when a message arrived to say that they had returned. We duly went to their rooms to meet them.

Peregrine, eighth Earl of Halstow and Cliffe, was an imposing figure for all he was not yet forty years of age (and if 'someone' mentioned my occasional and exceedingly rare interest in the society pages again there was going to be an argument!). The nobleman had married young and against his father's wishes, and the union had been happy if bittersweet. Elizabeth Countess of Halstow and Cliffe, originally a shop clerk from London, had given him the much-desired son and heir but doctors had warned her against further children. Regretfully as things turned out she had failed to heed that advice, and a year later had died giving birth to a daughter who had also died. The earl was still regarded as a fine social catch but it was the opinion of the society pages (or the very few that I chanced to read on the exceedingly rare occasions that I may have found myself in the vicinity of such articles and with an idle moment to pass) that he wished to remain single. Two years ago Mrs. Forth, a ghastly wife of an even ghastlier minor member of the House of Lords, had accused him of being father to her child but had been forced to retract the accusation when it had been proven that they had been in different countries around the time of the conception. He had sued for damages and very fairly had settled for a large donation to a local charity. That apart I knew next to nothing about him.

Damnation, Holmes was looking at me again!

The earl's son stood beside him and was.... to be honest, not quite as imposing. Egbert Baron Rotherhithe was tall, gangly and very much the adolescent teenager. Eighteen years old, he reminded me a little of Stevie at his age, clearly still growing into his overlong limbs. The boy's mother had I knew been part-East Indian – from Bencoolen in Malay if my memory served - and her son's mixed ancestry showed in a round but peasant face. He was dark-haired, a little pale and clearly someone who was (perhaps too) aware of his position in life. Like rather too many young lords these days he wore a large amulet emphasizing his having attained eighteen years, which I personally felt always implied that the owner was either insecure or suffered from short-term memory loss. Possibly even both.

“Thank you for coming to see me, gentlemen”, the earl said. “I am assured by the doctor's works that you practice absolute discretion for your clients when warranted. This case will certainly merit such treatment.”

Holmes nodded.

“Of course”, he said. “As I am sure you know, we neither of us allow any case to be published that might affect the innocent. How may we be of assistance, sir?”

The earl turned to his son.

“You may leave us now, Egbert”, he commanded.

The boy looked as if he were thinking of arguing but thought the better of it, and left. The earl turned back to us.

“Tell me, Mr. Holmes”, he said, “what do you know of my family?”

“I rely on my good friend the doctor for societal information”, Holmes said teasingly. I managed to shoot him a dirty look before the earl turned to me.

“The Esking family has Jutish roots”, I said, “and claims descent from the ancient Kentish dynasty of that name which would make you very distant cousins of our noble Queen. Your own family rose to prominence for their part in facilitating the escape of the future Charles the Second after the disaster at Worcester in 1651; when he came to the throne nine years later he rewarded your ancestor by creating him Earl of Halstow and Cliffe. Since then your family has prospered especially after your late father was wise enough to buy land that he knew would be needed by the expanding railway network in this county. You own Julich Hall, one of the residences of Henry the Eighth's much-maligned fourth wife Anne of Cleves, and do not attend social events as a rule. Egbert is your only son, your wife having died in childbirth some seventeen years past.”

He stared at me in surprise. Holmes chuckled.

“A veritable social encyclopaedia!” he smiled. “I am thinking of hiring him out!”

He was not close enough for me to swat at him, worse luck! I settled for a pou.... a scowl.

“It is a threat to my family that I am concerned about”, the earl said. “It is also one reason that I asked to meet you here. That and as the doctor has correctly noted, my dislike for both London and its so-called high society.”

Holmes nodded.

“Six months ago”, the earl said, “I received a letter...”

“What was the date?” Holmes interrupted.

“March the eleventh. I remember it because in the same post I received an invitation to go to the dog-show† that had been in all the newspapers; that communication had gone astray due to an error in the address as I had read in the 'Times' that the event had just started. The note itself was a short one; it merely stated that exactly six months and six days from then, my son would be kidnapped.”

I glanced at the calendar. Today was September the fifteenth. Only two days left.

“Was the note signed?” Holmes asked.

“Yes, which was something I thought strange. The name was 'Baron Maupertuis'. As I do not socialize I was compelled to ask Egbert if he knew the name. He did not but went down the library for me and found out some information for me. The man is the owner of the Netherlands-Sumatra Company and a thorn in the British Empire's side. His company is almost certainly involved in what little remaining slave trading there is in the Indian Ocean, despite our naval patrols. The Baron himself is intensely secretive and he lives in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The newspapers have speculated that his income and his expenditure, and I quote, 'do not march favourably'.”

 _In other words he is a fraudster or a blackmailer but they do not – yet – have the evidence to come out and say that_ , I thought not at all cynically.

“Did you keep the note?” Holmes asked, nodding at me for some reason.

“Sadly no”, the earl said. “I deemed it a hoax and threw it into the fire.”

“Yet you still had your son check out the details”, I pointed out. The earl smiled at me.

“I only have one son, doctor”, he said. “If anything were to happen to him, the Halstow line would die out.”

“Would not someone else inherit the title?” Holmes asked.

“The estate but not the title”, the earl said. “The title can descend by the direct male line only. My estate, should my son - heaven forbid! - predecease me or die without issue would go to a cousin in Scotland whom I have never met. My lawyer tells me that he is a quiet man in his early fifties and works as a clerk in a bank up in Stirling, Scotland. He is married with three children of his own; I maintain a distant watch on him in case he ever needs my support but he does well enough for himself, plus all his children are married and comfortably settled. Egbert has promised to continue that watch.”

“Apart from your son, did you tell anyone else about the kidnapping?” Holmes asked.

“I did not even tell him”, the earl said. “I merely asked him to investigate the Baron's name and find out what he could. He did not know that I had received the letter as he was out when it arrived; he brought it into my study with the rest of my letters but he was not there when I opened it.”

“Tell me about the second letter”, Holmes said.

“That arrived two weeks ago and basically repeated the threat”, the earl said, taking it out of his pocket and handing it to Holmes. My friend looked at it in surprise.

“This is a telegram”, he said, sounding almost accusatory.

“Yes”, the earl said, puzzled. “Is that important?”

“It may be”, Holmes said reading it. “Nothing new in the body of the missive. Sent from a London office but then it is quite easy to instruct an associate, even one in another country, to do that. When did you get the third one, pray?”

The earl looked surprised.

“How did you know that I had received a third one?” he asked.

“You came here for one main reason”, Holmes said. “Security. Yet from your uneasiness something has happened to make you realize that that ploy has not worked. Hence a third communication.”

The earl nodded.

“It was waiting for me on my bed when we got here”, he said pulling a letter out of his pocket as he spoke and handing it to Holmes.

I knew the implication of that. There was no road access to the hotel and it was a long walk from the nearest habitation, which meant that the person who had been in the earl's room was likely someone at the hotel, unless they had come over from either Sheerness or Queenborough. Holmes read the letter but said nothing, although there was a familiar light in his eyes which suggested that he had spotted something. He looked at his watch.

“Dinner will be served shortly”, he said. “I think that the doctor and I should take the opportunity to view the other guests, my lord. We still have at least one clear day before any kidnapping would be attempted. Let us make good use of it.”

He stood and bowed, then ushered me away and back to our rooms.

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Holmes came to my room before I was ready, as I was struggling with some recalcitrant cuff-links.

“Was there something in the third letter?” I asked finally clicking one of the infernal things into place.

“The message simply iterated the threats from earlier and again focussed on September the seventeenth”, he said. I looked at him.

“But you still saw something”, I pressed.

“You are getting to know me too well”, he smiled. “I will need to send off a telegram to confirm my suspicions but if I am right then this case is a very strange one indeed!”

I nodded and started my battle with the second cuff-link. He smiled, took my sleeve and did it for me in an instant. Having him that close to me was unusual and I found myself gazing into those impossibly blue eyes and wondering – was he indeed keeping anything else from me? Anything that could force us apart a second time, perhaps even forever?

I so wanted to trust him. I really did.

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The Port Victoria Hotel was not exactly the Ritz, but it was well-designed, light and airy. We reached our table in a pleasant dining-room before any of the other guests. We ordered dinner and as it arrived a number of people entered the room within a few minutes of each other, dispersing to various tables. I recalled the notes that I had made from the guest register and examined each in turn.

At the table next to ours were what had to be Colonel Henry Carnforth and his family. He was a bluff elderly gentleman with a long moustache, about sixty years of age. His pretty wife Mrs. Jane Carnforth was considerably younger, about forty-five years of age and spent much of the meal trying to get their sons to behave. The fraternal twins Albert and Alfred Carnforth were boisterous young lads who I judged to be about eighteen and their brother William was a quiet boy a couple of years their junior. The Colonel had invested some funds in the hotel, I knew, and all his sons were at the same school as Baron Egbert, the twins being in the same year as him. The family also had an elder daughter named for her mother, but she had married 'to disoblige the family' as they say, although I knew from my very occasional glancing at the social pages that both sides were trying to effect a reconciliation.

A little further away were Miss Mary Colindale and her companion Miss Augusta Bell. Miss Colindale was about fifty and had the air of someone who enjoys going to different places so that she could subsequently bore her friends to tears about them; I had more than one such patient at the surgery and had once somewhat stretched the truth maybe just a little by advising one of them against telling me about her latest trip because all that talking 'might damage your throat' (as in 'it would damage my ears'!). Miss Colindale was dressed in a stiff black dress though not mourning as there was no veil; presumably she just liked to look as depressing as she likely made most people feel. Her companion was around thirty years of age, rather plain and clearly subservient to her mistress's every whim. Holmes saw me looking and leaned across.

“There is no reason why our 'Baron' could not use an agent for his evil ends”, he said. “Or 'he' might even be a 'she'!”

“We know that 'he' lives somewhere in Luxembourg”, I retorted. Holmes chuckled.

“Using the name of a known recluse could be a ruse”, he pointed out. 

I sighed at his further confusing matters and turned my attention to the third table. The lone man sitting there must by deduction be Mr. Sweyn Haraldsson from Russian Finland. He was around thirty years of age, very muscular with white-blond hair and rather too much stubble. With his huge figure and eyes almost as blue as my friend's, his Viking ancestry clearly showed. Holmes had once mentioned that his own mother was descended from Viking stock which had not surprised me in the least; I could imagine her as a berserker striking fear into the hearts of her enemies, then probably capturing them and cruelly forcing them to listen to her dreadful stories to the point where they begged her to just kill them and put an end to their sufferings!

I really wished that 'someone' would not tut at me like that!

“There is a man who could crush someone with little effort”, I murmured once the waiter had gone.

“He is a Finnish separatist”, Holmes said spooning far too much sugar into his coffee as usual. What with that, his cakes and his barley-sugars it was a miracle (and ever so slightly annoying) that his teeth were still perfect. “He is seeking financial support for his country to declare independence from Russia one day. The earl's mother came from Norway‡ so he might be sympathetic to his cause.”

“But a ransom for an earl's son would yield a lot more than just a donation”, I pointed out.

Holmes was looking at the Carnforths' table, his head tilted to one side. Then he smiled and looked back at me. I sighed and carried on with my dinner.

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We should have had one more day of peace before any attempt was to be made on the earl's son, but our breakfast the next day was interrupted by the noisy arrival of the earl himself. 

“It is happening!” he burst out before we could react or ask just what was happening. “The hotel received a telegram today: 'Require one room for night of September seventeenth arriving early same evening'. It was signed 'Maupertuis'!”

He was clearly panicking. My friend gestured for him to take a seat and reluctantly he did. 

“Where was the telegram sent from?” Holmes asked while chewing on a piece of (my) bacon. He really was such a grub.

“There was no place of origin”, the earl said. 

I thought that odd, but then I supposed some foreign telegraph offices might not operate to the same standards as English ones.

“Where is the nearest telegram office after the hotel?” Holmes asked.

The earl had to think about that. It calmed him down which I suspect may have been my friend's intention.

“Gravesend or Sheerness”, he said. “I suppose someone could take the morning train to Gravesend, send it from there and return after a few hours. Or they could take the ferry across to Queenborough; both places have an office and that would be quicker. They might even row across; it is not far and the hotel does have a boat.”

Holmes nodded. 

“Do you think that an attempt will be made?” the earl asked anxiously.

“If the telegram that I sent yesterday yields results, then I hope that it can be averted”, Holmes said mildly.

“Hope?” the earl almost shouted.

“Calm down, Your Grace”, Holmes said placidly. “I see that our Finnish friend has gone for a walk again.”

“What?”

“I think that Watson and I will also take the sea air”, Holmes said much to my surprise. “I would like to have a further discussion with you this evening, assuming that I hear back from my inquiry. Would it be possible for Colonel Carnforth's sons to attend?”

“You want Henry's family there?” The earl looked totally nonplussed. 

Holmes chuckled.

“Teenage boys find this sort of thing interesting”, he said. “Come, Watson.”

I felt like a dog being dragged off by its master but I followed obediently after him. Put a collar on me and call me Rover!

I just _knew_ that he was smirking inside, damn the fellow!

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If anything my opinion of the new resort sank even further during my walk. The foggy weather was perhaps not helping but the long stony shoreline seemed even less interesting close up. I was staring across the Medway when Holmes suddenly spoke.

“I am sorry.”

“For what?” I asked nonplussed.

“For not telling you about the Boys' Home”, he said and I could feel the almost supernatural heat from his standing close to me. “The truth is my friend, it simply never occurred to me. It was not that I was keeping it from you; I simply did not think that you needed to be told.”

“I see”, I said. 

We walked on for some little way before he spoke again.

“You are afraid that that is not the only thing that I am keeping from you”, he said softly.

I was. And - I was grateful he had not said as much – I also feared that among any other hidden or untold information might be something that would take him from me again.

“I live a dangerous life”, he sighed, “and like all such men I have secrets. Part of me would like to tell you everything about me, but the greater part fears that if danger does ever threaten me then it would embrace you too, and I value you too highly to accept that risk. That apart I would never knowingly withhold anything from you, my friend.”

Oh Lord, I was going to have a Moment!

Obviously my credit with the Good Lord must have been high just then as we were both suddenly distracted by someone a little way ahead who was throwing stones into the river. I was never more grateful for a distraction. And I did not sigh with relief. It was just a deeper than usual breath.

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_I had not missed the damn judgemental silences, either!_

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It started raining before we got back to the hotel so we both went to change out of our damp clothes. When I rejoined my friend it was to find that his desired telegram had come. Holmes smiled as he read it and I looked over his shoulder to see what was such good news. It read 'Brackley Mills paper'.

Well that made everything clear - _as mud!_ He saw my disgruntlement and smiled.

“Chin up, my friend”, he said. “I doubt you will be able to write this case up for some time, but if you ever do it will definitely prove to be one of the more curious ones.”

I pou.. scowled and followed him down the stairs.

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“Thank you for letting us in on this”, Albert Carnforth said. “Bill has a bit of a cold but we are all keen to hear about your deductions, especially as to what you are going to do about tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Holmes asked, apparently nonplussed.

“The kidnapping is due tomorrow”, Baron Egbert pointed out. Holmes smiled knowingly. 

“There will be no kidnapping”, he said. “I am quite sure of that.”

“How?” the earl demanded as he joined us from where I assumed that he had just been speaking to the receptionist. Holmes leaned against the fireplace and smiled.

“I am going to recount a small story”, he said. “It concerns a man who feels that his country has been badly treated by the tide of history, a tide he believes that he can reverse. But that of course needs money.”

“Mr. Haraldsson”, I said. To my surprise Holmes shook his head.

“The country in question is Luxembourg, not Finland”, he said. “That German-speaking state, situated at a crossroads of the Continent, has suffered more than most from the depredations of war with parts being sliced off by France, Prussia and most recently Belgium so that it is today less than a quarter of its original size. There are many who deem that an injustice and few more so than Baron Philippe Guillaume Henri Jean-Jacques de Maupertuis.”

“His family is ancient, Huguenot in more recent times and dating back nearly a millennium to the early Capetians. After many vicissitudes they escaped the French Revolution by moving to Luxembourg only to see their new lands seized by the Belgians in the revolution of 'Thirty-Nine. Which means that there is a personal element to his crusade, to add to the rampant nationalism.”

“I do not believe, Your Grace, that you were targeted for any personal reason. However, an earl who has only one son and heir is far more likely to pay a ransom than one who has half a dozen. The doctor once told me of a famous instance in English history when King Stephen threatened to kill a young William Marshall in front of his father John, only for the latter to scornfully remark that he had and for that matter could make more and better sons?”

I had, although I was surprised that he had remembered. Despite the nineteen long winters that had been King Stephen's terrible reign, his decision to spare the boy had proved most beneficial as William Marshall had grown into the great hero who would one day help bring us Magna Carta. And rescue King Henry the Third, but one could not have everything.

“The Baron left his home in the duchy two days ago”, Holmes went on, “and spent yesterday travelling to the port of Flushing from where he intended to catch the ferry to Queenborough just across the river. However, anticipating such a move I telegraphed to a particular hotel which I know caters for people of his class, and my message was dully delivered to him. His reply confirms that he knows the game is up and that he cannot attempt any such villainy. He is returning home and is indeed likely there by now.”

I stared at him in confusion. How did a message about paper from a mill convey _that?_

“That is wonderful, Mr. Holmes!” the earl beamed. “You have saved the day! Be assured that you shall not find me ungrateful.”

“Thank you sir”, Holmes said. “However I think you have a rather more pressing concern at this precise moment in time.”

“What is that?” the earl asked, puzzled.

“Miss Colindale is returning to London by the last train, and is taking the charming Miss Bell with her”, Holmes said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “As I am sure the latter mentioned when she waylaid you just by the receptionist's desk just before you joined us. If you wish to catch them for, ahem, any reason then you will need to attend to it right away!”

The earl blushed but excused himself and hurried off. Baron Egbert sighed.

“Thank heaven that that is all over!” he said.

“Indeed”, Holmes said sipping his coffee before fixing the boy with a stern look. “Talking of which, you should be ashamed of yourself, my fine young lord – you _and_ your accomplices!”

There was a shocked silence as the three boys looked at him.

“What do you mean, sir?” Albert Carnforth said in an unsteady voice. Holmes stared hard at Baron Egbert who quailed under that azure gaze.

“That you schemed with your friends to plot a fake kidnapping is shameful!” he said sharply. “Your name is a long and honoured one, yet because you believe that your father does not grant you a large enough allowance, you came up with this ramp!”

He was genuinely angry and all three boys cowered away from him. I stared in shock.

“Sir....”, Alfred Carnforth began.

“I know everything”, Holmes cut in. “Three mistakes gave you away. First, your father said that he did not tell you about the attempted kidnapping yet you, Baron, told me that it is tomorrow. Only the writer of those notes or one of his confederates would have known that.”

I wondered if poor Baron Egbert was going to faint. He had gone very white.

“Second, you made the mistake of writing the notes at school”, Holmes said. “Doubtless you thought it safer than at home where you might be discovered. You are probably not aware of it but schools always use a specific shade of ink for writing that is unavailable to the general public and detectable by those who know how to look for it, as I do. Third, your school is located not far from the Brackley Paper Mills and obtains large quantities of its paper direct from there. Because of the chemicals that they use their paper has faint red marks on it, visible under a magnifying glass. As it is only supplied to them and industrial users in the area the messages clearly came from the school or someone in it. I dare say that a search of your bags and rooms would reveal drafts and sheets of similar paper.”

Judging from the redness on all three faces he was right.

“What are you going to tell Father?” Baron Egbert asked, staring intently at the rather uninteresting carpet. Holmes drew himself up.

“Nothing.”

They all stared at him in shock. As did I. He leaned forward.

“But understand this, _gentlemen_. I will be keeping a sharp eye on the progress of all three of you in the coming years and if there are any further 'incidents' no matter how small which suggest that you have taken even the slightest shuffle further along the criminal path, then both your fathers _will_ be informed. That I guarantee!”

All three boys muttered thank-yous though none of them could look Holmes in the eye, and they slipped off as soon as they could.

“Was that wise?” I asked. “Letting them get away with it?”

He sighed.

“I know my criminal classes, Watson”, he smiled. “They took one venture into criminality and nearly lost everything. They will not tread the path again, whereas if I informed one or both of their fathers the results would be... unpleasant. Colonel Carnforth would be ashamed of his sons for their actions and as you saw his health is weak enough as it is. The earl would be devastated but would feel that he has to stick with his son no matter how badly he had behaved. No, this way everyone has a chance to move on. Perhaps one day when they have all moved on far enough, you can talk about your story concerning how I averted the end of the peer.”

I looked at him in horror.

“That was just _bad!”_ I protested.

“'Hoo Done It'?” he suggested.

Why was there nothing available to throw at the smirking bastard?

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Postscriptum: The earl did indeed pursue Miss Augusta Bell, who fourteen months later became the new Countess of Halstow and Cliffe and provided the earl with a further son and a daughter, Augustus and Ethelflaed. However Baron Egbert – who did indeed justify my friend's faith in him – could be have fairly said to have secured the line himself. He married an American lady and proceeded to sire some fourteen children, nine of them sons!

Port Victoria Hotel was sadly less of a success, for although it lay nearer London that its rival across the Medway, the need to catch a ferry to Queenborough before catching another ferry to the Continent more than negated that. The hotel was closed in 1931 when the pier was abandoned, although trains continued to serve a resited station at the landward end and the South Eastern Railway decided to develop a new resort with a short branch-line at nearby Allhallows-on-Sea (1932). Today Port Victoria is no more, and the hotel where a bad baron plotted a devious kidnapping is but a memory.

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_Notes:_   
_† Cruft's Greatest Dog Show, named for the gentleman who created it, Mr. Charles Cruft._   
_‡ Not as illogical as it might seem today (1936); at the time Norway was in a Personal Union with Denmark and had its own separatist movement._

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	10. Case 106: The Adventure Of The Resurrectionists ☼

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Holmes has to deal with one of the less savoury (even by London standards!) aspects of Victorian life - grave-robbery. Is it just a simple (if disgusting) matter of cash for corpses, or something even more sinister? Not for the last time the great detective comes up with a cruel and unusual punishment to stop the foul business dead in its tracks (sorry!).

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

In many of my investigations, I am able to take advantage of some innate fault in the criminal mind which gives them away sooner rather than later. It is my job to make that happen sooner, and in this case it was thanks to the observational skills of a grave-digger of all people that justice was done in a most horrible crime. Even if it involved an even more horrible form of justice.

Mr. George Jenkins was very much what most people would have expected in someone who buried dead people for a living. Short and about fifty years of age, he had a naturally sad face which I suppose was to be expected in his position. It was a safe assumption that he was here in connection with the recent spate of grave-robberies in the vicinity of Cramer Street, a most regrettable part of Victorian life but one which the high demand for anatomies from colleges and the like had created.

“I wonder that you did not approach the authorities with what concerns you, sir”, I offered.

He blushed at that for some reason.

“Our local constable, sir”, he said. “Name of Collins. Not a good fellow.”

I was impressed that he was so utterly able to condemn a man in so few words. I suspected that the unseen Collins was far indeed from being a good fellow.

“You did not feel comfortable approaching him”, I observed. “So you have travelled over a mile to see us. May we know why?”

“The doctor here, he says you treat the likes of me fairly”, the man said. “I.... I'm not sure if what I think is right but small fry like me don't make a fuss, sir. It can come back on us, you see.”

“A fuss about what?” I asked patiently.

He took a deep breath and visibly collected himself. I could understand what Watson meant when he said that some cases gave one a bad feeling from early on. _What was going on here?_

“The robbers hit the churchyard on Friday”, he said. “They took bodies from six graves over by the old yew, which I suppose makes sense; there's no path thereabouts and no light or anything. But they also dug up just the one grave on the other side of the churchyard, not far from a street-light and within sight of the main road past the place.”

That did seem odd.

“Were there no other graves near the six that were robbed?” I asked.

“Plenty”, he said. “Also that's the area we're using now, so the bodies would still be.... you know.”

Ugh, I knew. Thankfully dinner was still some hours away and for once I was thankful that it was not bacon.

“So what exactly has perturbed you?” I asked.

“One of the six graves had this odd name on it, sir”, he said. “Dead lady was a Mrs. Symmonds-Yale. Made me think of that place I read of in the West Country, though I can't place the name.”

“Symonds Yat, in west Gloucestershire”, Watson supplied helpfully. “The name comes from the deep gorge in the River Wye there; it is a local beauty spot and very popular with visitors.”

I could see from his slight hesitation that he was remembering our case in the part of the world; indeed we had visited the gorge while 'investigating' the disappearance of a man who... again, dinner was thankfully some way off.

“That's it”, our visitor said. “Well, the other grave at the front that was done, that was a Mrs. Toynbee.”

I did not see the connection, but thankfully someone who only very rarely glanced at the social pages and then only if the newspaper just happened to have been left open at that particular page, came as ever to my rescue.

“Mrs. Mary Toynbee was married to Mr. Paul Symmonds-Yale, and remarried after his death”, he said. “She was the aunt of that dreadful so-called journalist at the 'Times', Miss Portia Toynbee, who is always sounding off either about women's rights or how dreadful this country is.”

I knew that that was one of the things that annoyed him about the modern world; people who whined about how bad Great Britain was but apparently never _quite_ bad enough for them to up and leave it. Strange, that.

“That's right, sir”, our visitor said. “Of course I don't move in such circles but the single gravestone, it had the name of the woman's first husband on it. That's how I knew.”

“I see”, I said. “Watson, do you happen to know anything else about the Symmonds-Yale family?”

The resident Bradshaw of the social pages scowled at me for that. 

“The only other one of note is Lady Angela Symmonds-Yale”, he said. “She must be not far short of eighty, so perhaps a sister of the deceased. A most unpleasant woman from what the newspapers say about her; I think that she is distantly related to the Duchess of Stratford-on-Avon.”

 _Like the dreadful Lady Antonia Moreton-Coles, slayer of her husband's valet Mr. Macbeth_ , I thought. This small case seemed to have several links with others we had undertaken, and I still had that bad feeling about it.

“My wife Ethel said Lady Angela owns property in our area”, the grave-digger said, “and when I asked around it looked as if she were our landlord though of course she uses someone else to collect the rent. I thought, if there's something to this and she traces it back to me.... you know how some people are, sir.”

“Be assured that we will in no way mention you in this matter”, I promised, to our guest's evident relief. “If asked, we will merely say that we ourselves spotted the connection during a visit to your churchyard.”

Our visitor looked mightily relieved at that.

“Thank you, sir!”

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I tipped our client for his time then spent some time mulling over what he had told us.

“You think that someone is targeting the Symmonds-Yales?” Watson asked dubiously. “I know that Lady Angela is unpleasant to say the least, as is her niece Miss Toynbee, but surely the family cannot be being targeted just for that?”

“There must be something more to it”, I said. “This grave-robbing is very wrong, but I would like to know more before we go charging in. Especially because, as our client rightly fears, he may suffer if we are careless with our inquiries.”

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After a lot of thought on the matter I went to see Miss St. Leger, alone unfortunately as Watson had a busy day ahead at his surgery. The price for their being occasionally flexible in allowing him to assist me at times was that he had to make it up sooner rather than later. Not that I needed him constantly at my side, of course.

A certain red-headed lady's smug look was just _annoying!_ I was almost tempted to grab for one of the jam cream fingers on the cake-stand, but luckily my strong sense of self-preservation prevented me from such foolishness.

“I am concerned about these so-called Resurrectionists”, I said. “A ghastly term when 'grave-robber' is much more apt. I suspect that there is more to them than meets the eye, and I need information.”

“I have heard of their activities”, she said, reaching almost inevitably for the first of the three jam cream finger all of which 'just happened' to be on her side of the cake-stand. “Not something that I would have thought to have interested you, though.”

“I rather think that they have found a new and even viler source of income”, I said. “I talked to my friend LeStrade and he said that he was sure he knew the men behind it, but it was a question of catching them in the act.”

“I am surprised that he could tear himself away from the nearest cake long enough to notice”, she said, casually wiping away a stray dollop of cream.

I looked pointedly at her. At least she had the grace to blush, although she still reached for the second finger (seriously, she put away cake almost as fast as a couple of London sergeants that I could mention!).

“I know that he could get hold of their bank details”, I said, “but we both know the way in which the financial system works. For all its claims to honour and decorum it leaks more than a government department, and I am sure that news of that would swiftly reach people whom I do not wish it to reach. At least, not yet.”

“Whereas I could get it without them knowing”, she said. “Sounds easy enough. Have you a list of the names and banks?”

I handed a piece of paper to her. Her eyebrows shot up.

“Our so-called Resurrectionists are banking with the very best!” she said. “That means they have a lot of money, far more than they could get from digging up dead people. I suppose that that is why you are interested. I will have it for you by tomorrow at the latest.”

“Thank you”, I smiled.

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I detoured via my cousin Luke's house on the was back to Baker Street, and was more than a little surprised to have the door opened to me by a Benji who was just leaving and had obviously been crying. I looked inquiringly at my demonic relative as I sat down.

“Little Lizzie's christening”, he said, sitting down much more slowly than me yet still wincing. “Poor boy has been all over the place what with her illnesses since her birth, but he and Bet finally had the mite christened today.”

Now I understood. For all his huge size Benji always went to pieces at any church service – he had even cried at his own damn wedding! - and after each of his children's christening his wife would always send him round to Luke 'to get it out of his system'. Which judging from the tattered look of what remained of my cousin, he had done for the third time now - and as per usual, right into my poor cousin!

“He said he wants at least a dozen of the things”, Luke sighed. “I doubt I will make it that far – but what a way to go!”

I shook my head at him. I had terrible relatives!

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Miss St. Leger duly came through for me the following day, and I found myself with a problem. Fortunately Watson, who so many people underestimated when reading our adventures together, had a solution.

“It is like this”, I explained. “A blackmail ramp. The Resurrectionists target a graveyard where they know a noble family like the Symmonds-Yales have relatives buried, and dig up at least two of them. They then contact other families who have relatives buried there or elsewhere and suggest that for a payment their relatives will be left in peace – unlike the Symmonds-Yales who had refused to pay! Even if the family deny the story, those hearing it will think that they are doing so merely to avoid embarrassment.”

“That is evil!” he protested.

“Yes”, I said. “The trouble is in proving it. LeStrade has the evidence to obtain a conviction against this bunch of villains, but you know as well as I do how gaols work. Once word gets around, other groups will be trying the same ramp soon enough. They will be stopped, but there will be a whole lot of distraught families along the way.”

“Unless the first lot have such a terrible punishment that it deters all others”, he said lightly.

I stared at him. He stared back.

“Have I said something wrong?” he asked.

“No”, I said. “Something very clever. Hmm, I think that that might just work.

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I met LeStrade a few days later outside Mr. Jenkins's churchyard. He was clearly surprised that I had asked to meet him in such a place and and at this time of an evening, and even more so when he saw that there was what looked like grave-robbing going on right before our eyes. Fortunately he knew me well enough by now to not immediately charge in and start arresting people.

“Something's up, sir”, he said suspiciously. “Those aren't the fellows we are looking at.”

“Not as such”, I said. “Although in a way, one of them is.”

He had timed his advent well, for the men were just hauling the coffin out of the ground. And coming from inside it there was frantic banging. His eyes widened.

“They buried some poor fellow alive?” he exclaimed in horror.

“Only for an hour or so”, I said soothingly. “She is the leader of your gang.”

 _”She?”_ he exclaimed, even more shocked. I nodded.

“Miss Portia Toynbee”, I said grimly. “She saw an excellent chance to make herself rich through this vile business. Her men would dig up her own family, and then make it clear to others whose nearest and dearest were buried there that unless they paid up, their relatives would be next.”

“That is vile!” Watson said forcibly.

“Once she has been dusted off it will be made clear to her that a certain Mr. Kuznetsov has friends and relatives in this area, and has not taken kindly to those who would disturb their eternal rest by digging anywhere near them. Also, if she carries on with her vile trade here or anywhere else, the next time she is buried it will be permanently!”

He whistled in surprise.

“That's evil, sir”, he said appreciatively. “Wish we in the Service could do it to quite a few people....”

I just _knew_ that he was thinking of Gregson. I stared disapprovingly at him.

“Sorry sir”, he said, blushing.

“Hmm”, I said. “That reminds me; Mrs. Hudson will not be baking tomorrow as she is off to Scotland to see her brother for a few days.”

His face fell like a stone thrown off a cliff. I smiled and handed him the tin that I had brought with me.

“But knowing as she does how much you like her chocolate cake”, I said, handing him the tin I had been carrying, “she put a slice aside when she baked it today. You can bring the tin back next time you call.”

He actually slavered as I handed him the tin. Honestly, some men and their favourite foodstuffs!

When we got back to Baker Street, I would remind Watson to take something for the cough that he seemed to have acquired from somewhere. Hmm.

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I may have forgotten to mention that our landlady had also sent Watson round to Gregson's station with another slice. My friend's face had been hilarious when she had told him very firmly to get a receipt for it, almost as if she did not trust him in the vicinity of chocolate. She knew him too well!

As I said, some men and their foodstuffs. Thank the Lord that I was nothing like that!

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	11. Interlude: Parties And Pools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Lucifer Garrick will never view a swimming-pool the same way again!

_[Narration by Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles, Esquire]_

I was so damn happy, what with little Ben having had a great third birthday party. Even better, Bet's mother had had the flu and been unable to come; she still leered at me after those damn art classes! So I had celebrated by coming round to Mr. Lucifer's home and sharing my happiness with him.

Said gentleman was sat on the (padded) seat in his shower, moaning gently as I washed him down.

“Never again!” he muttered. “I am going to get a name for taking so many Mondays off work, you horn-dog!”

I didn't smirk because that would've been bad of me, but I enjoyed the sight of such a good-looking man being totally wrecked. He had been off to his club when I had called and, much to my surprise, had asked me to go with him. Once there he'd booked an hour for us both in their swimming-pool – his club had a damn swimming-pool! - so I had gotten to blow him underwater!

He had actually cried in the carriage-ride back to the house, and I had had to help him up the stairs. _I was the man!_

“Please tell me that you have not got Bertha pregnant again yet!” he sighed as I finished washing him off after another thorough fucking. He was as I've said fifteen years older than me, thirty-eight now to my twenty-three, but he kept himself in impressive condition for someone who spent so much time working at his desk. Though I helped a bit in that.

I helped him to his feet and got him out of the shower, then sat him on the side of the bath and dried us both down. He smiled gratefully at me, but there was a look of terror as I eyed The Demonator lasciviously.

“Please, Benji!” he begged. “Have mercy!”

“A time just holding you'll put you right, Mr. Lucifer sir”, I said gently. “Come on.”

I helped him stagger to his impressive bed and eased him into it, then folded myself in behind him. He was already asleep by the time I had him in my arms, yet he still nestled back until the Banjax was right between his cheeks... oh well, waste not want not.

Even in his sleep he moaned, but it was (I think) a happy moan. Once again I was the man!

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	12. Case 107: The Adventure Of The Velveteen Porter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Someone is trying to take advantage of certain railway companies' dreadful safety records to effect a train crash for their own ends – to end a certain consulting detective! And Watson surprises Holmes with a small gift.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

As I have said on many an occasion, Holmes accepted cases mostly just on their points of interest. No amount of money and certainly no high title or fame would make him touch a case that he considered uninteresting unless (as with our recent Brackhampton case) it was as a favour to a friend like myself. So I was not surprised to return to Baker Street one day and find that our latest client was a smartly-clad Great Northern Railway porter, resplendent in his velveteen black uniform. Even if the fellow's haverings were clearly taxing my friend's patience somewhat.

For some reason, the thought occurred to me that this new and much smartened Holmes was really an attractive young man, and I wondered again that his fearsome if not terrifying mother had not exerted more pressure on him to marry. She had some fourteen grandchildren at the time (if one included Master Tantalus Holmes) but there was always room for more and with three children married and three more almost certain never to, that left my friend. He really should..... no, that was none of my business.

“Let us go back to the beginning”, Holmes said looking at me curiously for some reason (I really should have remembered about those maddening mind-reading tendencies of his). “Sir, I am not sure that what you have laid before me constitutes a case, but clearly your expertise in the area of railway matters is something that I must accede to much as I must accede to my friend the doctor as regards medical matters. What first made you concerned in this matter?”

Our client was a Mr. Oliver Lightwind, as I have said a railway porter. He was one of those quiet and nondescript fellows, dark-blond with receding hair, small of stature, about forty-five years of age and wearing round spectacles. He had a faint West Country accent I had thought on hearing him speak, and he had clearly polished his uniform's buttons in order to make a good impression. He took a deep breath.

“Until a year ago sirs I worked at Baldock Station”, he said. “It's on a branch owned by the Great Northern Railway that connects the main line to the town of Royston, some trains going on using a connecting Great Eastern Railway branch from Cambridge. A quiet enough station until the, uh, accident.”

I wondered at the hesitation.

“Please tell us about that.... accident”, Holmes said. The man frowned.

“As I'm sure you gentlemen appreciate, railway trains is getting heavier and longer all the time and this makes for a lot of wear on the poor old permanent way. Baldock's only a small station but there's a crossover to allow trains to change tracks if necessary, plus sidings and whatnot. When they decided to renew the line they set the points so that trains did single-line working on one line, with flagmen at either end while the rails were being taken up and replaced on the other. Trains had to slow for the points, of course.”

“I see”, Holmes said. “Pray continue.”

“Everything went fine until that damn Cambridge train”, the man said ruefully. “You see, all our regular trains are slow ones stopping at every station to Royston including ours. But the trains that go through to Cambridge they're expresses – well semi-fasts - and they don't stop. A train came along and somehow the points were set for the missing track.”

I winced at the image. Now I remembered reading of this accident – if it had been an accident.

“Why was no-one killed?” I wondered. 

“The coaches stayed upright because they had just been fitted with the new spring-loaded buffers”, he said. “And though it were a fast train it'd still had to slow for the station. Lots of folks hurt as you must've read, sir, but thankfully no deaths. Station was a mess of course but that could be patched up. Lives can't.”

Holmes looked at him shrewdly.

“I am sure that you have read the good doctor's writings, sir”, he said coolly, “and that you are further aware that whatever my abilities might or might not be, they do not extend to preventing accidents.”

“This weren't no accident”, the man said shortly.

We both stared at him in surprise.

“I see”, Holmes said heavily. “So to the obvious question. How do you know that for a fact?”

The man looked if possible even more anxious.

“Few weeks before it happened”, he said, “when they started work on the track, Fred – he's stationmaster – told me that he was sorta worried about Mr. Sainsbury the chief foreman. Said there was something odd about his eyes.”

“How did the man's physical appearance come into the matter?” Holmes asked, showing rather more patience that I might have expected. Our visitor was definitely inclined to babble.

“Not the way he looked sir; the way he didn't look”, our guest said.

“You mean that he did not look people straight in the eye when addressing them?” I guessed. I had some patients like that and it always made me warier of them than I might otherwise have been, often with good justification. He looked at me gratefully.

“That's just it sirs”, he said. “Mabel – that's my good lady wife – she always says that you can't trust a man who won't look you in the eye, and I thinks she's right on that.” 

“Did this foreman do anything suspicious leading up to the accident?” Holmes asked. The porter scratched his head.

“Rodders – Rodney the flag guy, the one who was supposed to warn oncoming trains – he said no-one had told him there'd be a fast train along which is why he let himself get called away.” He shook his head. “But I don't see how that could've happened. Everyone who does that job – I've done it myself once – gets a list of all trains due. The time I did it, I had to show my list of trains to the big boss man every day to prove I hadn't lost it or I wasn't allowed on the tracks. Rodders is straight as an arrow, sirs, so I think someone didn't tell him about that train.”

It reminded me rather of another rail-crash† over two decades, with consequences more serious and, as it turned out, a more famous almost-victim. The tragic case of Foreman John Benge from 'Sixty-Five who, while overseeing repairs to a bridge on the South Eastern Railway, had got caught out by the unexpected arrival of the tidal, the train whose time varied because it had to wait for the ship from France to dock at Folkestone. The flagman there had lost his copy of the timetable but had still been allowed on the tracks, an action for which the railway company had been rightly criticized. Among the passengers that day had been the famous author Charles Dickens, and when he had died some five years later many had ascribed both that and his recent reduced output as caused by shock from the accident. Also railways accidents were, it should be said, far more frequent in those days with safety measures being patchy and often ineffectual. 

“No-one was killed, yet you have taken the opportunity of a visit to the railway doctor in King's Cross to see a consulting detective”, Holmes mused. “Clearly there has been some further development in this tale that has made you even more anxious. What was it?”

The porter turned pale.

“Mabel and I live in a place called Stotfold, sirs, a couple of miles north of Baldock. O' course I didn't say anything to anyone official-like at the time but I talked about it with Bert, Mabel's brother. The other day he came to me and told me that Mr. Sainsbury and his gang were to start replacing the rails on the main line.”

Holmes thought for a moment.

“Where are _you_ working now?” he asked. 

“That's what's got me worried, sir”, the man fretted. “I helped out after the accident and got myself injured for my pains. The Company treated me right, and when I was mended they gave me a choice; my old job or porter working alongside Bert – should've said; he lives three doors down from me - up at Sandy on the main line. It's better for me you see because he has use of a horse and cart to get him there of a day, so he gives me a lift. And the pay's the same.”

“That is very neighbourly of him”, Holmes said. “So Mr. Sainsbury and his men are about to start working in your new station's vicinity?”

The porter nodded.

“You see sir”, he said leaning forward, “the layout at Sandy is sorta odd. The London & North Western line, Oxford to Cambridge, cuts across ours north of the town then runs into a station that not only sits next to ours, we share a platform.”

That _did_ surprise me. Railway companies sharing platforms was like nations sharing disputed territories. Or like a certain consulting detective sharing his bacon and coffee of a morn....

Holmes was looking at me suspiciously. I gulped.

“There's a connecting loop north of where the lines cross”, the porter said mercifully unaware of my unease, “a real sharp curve with a ten miles per hour limit on it. We got lucky at Baldock because the line's dead straight; if it'd been a curve then Lord alone knows what might have happened.”

Holmes thought again and it was some little time before he spoke.

“Mr. Lightwind”, he said gravely, “I wish you to empathize.”

“Shouting, sir?” our guest queried. I bit back a snigger.

“Empathize, not emphasize”, Holmes pressed, although I could see that it had amused him slightly as well. “To put yourselves in the shoes of the criminals in this matter. If you were able to derail one and only one train and send it to its destruction, which one would you target?”

The man looked horrified at such an idea but nodded obediently and thought hard.

“The Night Mail, sir”, he said at last. “That's the one I'd go for.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the reduced visibility would mean that the driver and fireman would not see the danger before it was too late”, Holmes said. “A gang might overpower the signalman and divert the train onto the sharp curve, which would cause maximum devastation and more chance for thievery. All those letters, cheques and postal orders.... it would indeed be the perfect target. Well done Mr. Lightwind.”

Our visitor visibly preened.

“Have the men actually started work yet?” Holmes asked.

“They're doing the down‡ lines between Letchworth and Sandy now”, our visitor said. “We're having to do a lot of chopping and changing while they do it, though as it's a bigger station there's more room for that sort o' thing. I guess next week they'll do the ups then do the station the week after.”

“Then that is when they will strike”, Holmes said. He stared for some little time at our guest then smiled. “I would like for you to send a telegram to us next week either way to advise on their progress and again when they move to working in your station. The doctor and I will come up as soon as that happens.”

 _Oh would 'we'?_ I thought, a little annoyed at his presumption. 

He just looked at me. Apparently 'we' would. And it really was cold all of a sudden for some reason.

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“You spent a lot of time staring at that poor railwayman”, I observed later as we sat by the fire after a most delicious stew (there had been bacon so that had clearly made my friend happy). “Was there something odd about his story?”

Holmes seemed to hesitate but answered.

“There was nothing odd about his story, Watson.”

I had the distinct impression that there was more to what he had said that my feeble brain was capable of discerning. No change there then.

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“I learned something new today.”

It was three days after our velveteen visitor and Holmes seemed unusually cheerful given the time of morning and non-appearance as yet of any bacon. I stared at him suspiciously.

“What was that?” I said. I had had a particularly hard day out and about the day before and had been feeling exhausted when I had finally made it back to Baker Street. Thank the Lord for Mrs. Hudson whom I had had the good sense to telegraph earlier, and who had arranged for a re-heatable meal that was ready so fast it had almost beaten me to our rooms. The lady was a marvel!

“Two things”, he smiled. It was unnerving, his looking cheerful before nine of the clock _sans_ pig. “First, Randall came round with some information that I had requested and not only apologized for his behaviour in the Smitham business but also helped me put certain arrangements in place for our porter friend. Of course Mother forced him to make the apology, but that did not detract from the pleasure that I got from it.”

“Good”, I said. 

“Second”, he smiled, “Miss Josephine Thackeray is quite adept with her gun collection.”

I stared at him in confusion. I already knew about our feisty landlady's niece.

“Did you not know that already?” I asked.

“I did”, he said. “Randall did not. _But he does now!”_

It took my sleep-doused brain a few minutes to put it all together but soon I was smiling as broadly as my good friend. Today was suddenly a whole lot better!

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Holmes's birthday had happened the day of our return from our last case down in Kent, and I had been a little down that the present I had arranged had not quite been ready for him. Which reminded me; I owed dear Mrs. Hudson yet another favour for our wonderful landlady had drawn my attention to an advertisement in the newspaper which, she suspected, might be just the thing for him. I did not choose to comment on her observational skills that led to her remarks, and not just because she was possessed of a pistol.

Well, not _solely_ because of that fact!

He was both surprised and delighted when I gave him the small parcel to unwrap and, I would wager, more than a little underwhelmed to find a half-pound bag of his favourite flavoured barley-sugar there. He smiled in thanks.

“Wordsley's” he said. “My favourite. Thank you, Watson.”

“I'm glad that you like it”, I said. “Because there is more.”

“Watson?”

“I bought you a whole year of those unusual flavours of barley-sugar!” I smiled triumphantly. “I know how annoyed you where when our sweet shop stopped doing the flavoured ones that you like, so I arranged with them to order a barrel of the things and there will be a bag ready for you to collect every week.”

The look of gratitude I got was so overwhelming that I wanted to hug the man. Wisely I refrained.

“Sometimes I think that I do not deserve you, Watson”, he said quietly.

“Only sometimes?” I asked in mock indignation. “Harrumph!”

He chuckled at that.

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Further telegrams kept us apprised of developments in distant Bedfordshire and two weeks later Holmes and I set out for King's Cross Station to take a train north. I was a little surprised that my friend did not bring or advise me to bring a night bag; I had thought we might have to spend at least one night in the area. I brought my gun, though. 

We made good progress until we reached the station at Biggleswade, a little way north of Letchworth and the junction for the Baldock line. Holmes stood up.

“We alight here”, he said.

“Is not Sandy the next stop?” I asked confused.

“It is”, he said, “but we will not be taking this train there.”

“Why not?” I asked. He just smiled knowingly and led the way out of the carriage. I followed while not pouting, whatever anyone later claimed.

Out on the platform the stationmaster had had drawn up a luggage trolley and was balancing on top of it rather precariously, for he was a large man. All the other passengers had alighted as well and were milling around while chatting in confusion.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the stationmaster called, mercifully gaining the attention of the crowd at once. “My sincerest apologies for delaying your journey but we have a major problem with the line beyond Sandy, the next stop along. The embankment has suffered some damage so the company will be putting on a replacement train which will use the other line through there and then resume its journey beyond.”

“Why cannot we use this train?” one man called out, quite reasonably I thought.

“The other line has also sustained minor damage”, the stationmaster said, “but it is usable at slow speed. However this heavy locomotive would be dangerous on it and we do not wish to expose you our passengers to even the remotest element of danger. Fortuitously we have an experimental rake of coaches at Hitchin; a lighter engine is already collecting them and will be on the opposite platform in around a quarter of an hour. We will send this train on so that the engine can be used to speed the repairs to the line.”

 _“Hexperimental_ coaches?” snapped one haughty-looking elderly lady wearing a most horrible mauve dress. “What his wrong with them, pray?”

“They are experimental new _first-class_ coaches with superior suspension, madam”, the stationmaster said smoothly. “I am sorry for the delay but you will all be on your way again – and with more comfortable seating – very soon.”

There was still a little grumbling but the passengers headed for the waiting-rooms. I sighed. Railways these days.

“We had better join them”, I said. To my surprise he shook his head.

“Watch”, he said quietly.

I followed his pointing finger to where our locomotive was beginning to move its long rake of coaches slowly up the line. I knew that Sandy was some miles away but the train still seemed to be accelerating rather too rapidly in my opinion. Holmes handed me a pair of binoculars and I watched as the locomotive moved into the distance. Then just the other side of a road over-bridge and seconds before they would have disappeared from my view, I was sure that I saw both the driver and fireman leap off. 

What on earth....?

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“I still do not get it”, I said plaintively as we made our way back to London. “Nor do I understand why the conductor was so strange when he checked our tickets. Anyone might have thought that he was a spy, the way he was all cloak-and-dagger with us.”

“Such a thought would have been quite correct.”

Words. I was sure that at some time in the not too recent past I had been capable of them but for now I just floundered. He smiled and sat back.

“Do you remember the case involving our Russian criminal 'friend'?” he said.

“Mr. Kuznetsov”, I said. “He wanted you to find his youngest son innocent of stealing his painting, and you both did and did not.”

He smiled at my choice of words.

“Since then”, he said, “he has as I told you made it clear to the criminal world in London that any action against me would not be well received on his part. In short it would result in a one-way dip in Old Father Thames, with free concrete footwear. So anyone wishing to push Mr. Sherlock Holmes into the hereafter would first have to make sure that it looked like an accident. He paused before adding, “such as a railway accident.”

I opened and closed my mouth as I attempted to rejoin the world of reality. It was out there somewhere I was sure. Fairly sure.

“My would-be attacker has many names”, he said, “but in the London crime world he is known as Mr. Rupert Rowland. His speciality is in the bribery and blackmail of top officials and government ministers. Early last autumn I was in Inverness and I spent some months decimating his carefully constructed network, which had had bases all around the Three Kingdoms. Of course he found out.”

I wondered briefly if the obnoxious lounge-lizard might have dropped poor Holmes in it out of sheer malice, but quickly told myself that not even he would consort with criminals like that. An ultimately poor judgement on my part, as later events later would prove. 

“He knows that doing anything directly against me would bring about the ire of Mr. Kuznetsov and a subsequent terminal swim”, Holmes went on calmly. “So he is careful. He creates a case that he hopes will draw my attention. One of his confederates, a man I now know to be a Mr. Gideon Osmund. becomes Mr. Oliver Lightwind, a railway porter who worked at Baldock Station where there was an accident that could be made to seem suspicious, and now works at Sandy where more important trains come through. The Baldock accident was real enough, the real Mr. Lightwind was off work as a result and he does indeed now work at Sandy. But he has never been to Baker Street and physically he is rather different from our velveteen client. I visited the town the other day and checked him out.”

“So the porter was a fake!” I exclaimed. He nodded.

“There were clues”, he said. “I was immediately suspicious because of the lack of stoop.”

“Of what?” I asked confused.

“Railway baggage hand-carts are notoriously ill-designed”, he said. “Anyone who had really spent a large part of their living pushing around one of those contraptions heavily laden with people's luggage would have developed some arching of the back. This man had none. Then there was his skin.”

“What about his skin?” I asked. “I noticed some soot on his nails which I would have expected.”

He smiled.

“As I said before there is soot, and soot”, he said. “I would wager that in order to play his part this fellow spent some time milling around one of the busy railway stations for a few days before he called on us, possibly even as a porter. It was his bad luck that he chose a Great Western Railway station for his preparation; he had some wear on his hands from carrying bags but as I have noted before, their locomotives use fine Welsh coal which results in a much smaller soot particle. Fortunately our visitor was untidy and I was able to collect some of the soot he left behind and confirm my suspicions by having it tested.”

I still felt confused.

“But how could they be sure that you would be on _that_ train?” I asked.

“That was where the conductor came in”, Holmes smiled. “We knew that Mr. Rowland would be placing someone on the train to make sure that I was on it when it crashed and that most likely that person would be in first class so they could be close to me. Brock – Mr. Kenton-Hurst the conductor – found and chloroformed the man when he went to clip his ticket then locked the compartment after him. You saw the driver and fireman quit the train; when it crashed a few minutes later there would by the workings of divine Providence be only one person asleep on it.”

“A divine Providence called Holmes”, I said.

“Mr. Rowland's gang doubtless set some sort of trap on the connecting points north of Sandy so as to derail the train there”, Holmes said. “'Great detective dies in railway accident' would have been in the papers for a day or so then they would have moved on.”

“I would not have!” I said hotly. “You should have trusted me.”

He smiled at me, a little sadly I thought.

“As I have also said more than once before, you are _too_ good and true”, he said. “You wear your heart on your sleeve and are so honest and upright that you make a terrible liar. I would trust you with my life if necessary.”

“But you also trusted Randall”, I said trying (and failing) to not sound sulky.

“I would not trust Randall an inch”, he said firmly.

“Then how....”

“Because Randall knows, especially after recent events, that if anything else happened to me and Mother found out that he had been in any way involved, then the wrath of Mr. Kuznetsov would be as nothing to her fury. He might flee to Jupiter and she would still hunt him down!”

I chuckled at that as our train sped on its way back to the Great Wen.

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Postscriptum: I was a little anxious that the vile Mr. Rowland might try again to end the life of my friend but this was prevented by Holmes simply passing on to Mr. Kuznetsov the precise sequence of events. The news that two bodies had been dragged out of the Thames a few days after our return barely made the inside front page as our last client exited both our lives and his own.

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_Notes:_   
_† Stranger still was the fact that Dickens died on the fifth anniversary of the accident. In fact there had been a strikingly similar accident just two days before at Rednal on the line between Shrewsbury and Chester when an overloaded excursion train had failed to spot men repairing the line ahead of them and had run off the rails as a result. In both cases the recently developed detonator, an explosive device placed across the rail to go off when a train approached, could and should have been used but once again the safety procedures that should have been in place were not followed, with disastrous results._   
_‡ In railway parlance 'up' and 'down' refer not to north and south but to London. Up trains travel to the capital while down trains travel away from it. The stretch between Sandy and Biggleswade is part of the main London to Edinburgh line and quadruple-tracked, so there are two up and two down lines, one each for express and semi-fast trains._

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	13. Case 108: An Irish Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Holmes's sole (publishable) Irish case in which Watson learns why one should never meet one's heroes, and the great detective uncovers a cunning murder plot involving a fellow violinist. Still, at least when it comes to a nunnery the doctor can be sure that there will be no simpering at his frie....  
> Oh come on!

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

I was not going to be sick, I was not going to be sick, I was not going to....

Myself and most of my lunch from what seemed like a lifetime ago in Cork, ingloriously and horribly parted company, the latter disappearing down the ship's side. I moaned piteously; I had really liked that chocolate cake!

“I am sorry”, came a familiar voice from alongside me. I would have turned to glare at him but I sensed instinctively that any sudden movement would be unwise. Unfortunately my current wretched state meant that this thought was a little slow to arrive in my brain, and I turned to glare at him anyway.

I had to turn back quickly, as there went the rest of that cake. I hated my life!

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My publishers made me promise when writing further stories from my time with the great detective that I would refrain from teasing my readers as I so often did the first time around by mentioning yet more cases that could not be discussed for 'reasons'. Sadly there is no way round it in this instance so I shall just say that we were about to travel back from Ireland after attending to a case there, one which had taken us right across the island to the fair city of Limerick. I had expected Holmes to wish to hurry back to London as soon as possible – he seemed to fear that criminals would exploit his rare absences to run amok – but instead he wished to stop at the small town of Mallow before going on to Cork and the ferry home. I asked him why and he explained that his mother, the redoubtable (terrifying) Lady Holmes, hailed from there and indeed he himself had been born there. I wondered if even way back then she had been writing those dreadful stories of hers....

I wondered why the damn mind-reading thing still seemed to work off the island of Britain! Harrumph!

The reader may wonder at this point why I did not mention this, Holmes's sole visit to Hibernia, among his other cases. Today (1936) the Irish Free State is a sovereign nation in all but name with tolerable relations across the Irish Sea; however things were very different at the time of this case. It had been only fourteen years since the passage of the Secret Ballot Act which had been aimed at stamping out electoral fraud in England (and definitely not because the wider electorate was now too large to be all bribed, no sirree!). As so often with legislation there had been an unintended consequence, in this case that Catholic Irishmen could now vote without fear of retribution from their mostly Protestant landlords, with the result that the country now returned a solid 'Irish bloc' of some sixty members of parliament that at the time backed Mr. Gladstone's Liberal Party in the hope of winning some degree of independence from London ('Home Rule'). 

The Grand Old Man's conversion to the Celtic cause had however angered many in his party and a number had split away to become Liberal Unionists who by and large sided with the Conservatives. At the general election earlier that year this informal coalition had won a majority, and the actions of a few hard-core Irish extremists who thought that blowing up people and buildings would somehow advance their cause had subsequently poisoned Anglo-Irish relations. Had it been widely known that my friend was half-Irish he would doubtless have found his life much more difficult, although I strongly doubted that even the extensive high society in the English capital could provide anyone brave and/or stupid enough to take on Lady Holmes over such an issue! Otherwise she might just read them one of her dreadful stories and... and he is looking at me again, damnation!

Unfortunately on leaving behind that 'inimitable' authoress's home town and reaching Cork, I had made a very stupid decision. I suggested that we take the ferry boat connecting the town with its port at nearby Queenstown rather than the railway which ran the long way around the bay. The nice, solid, grounded, reliable, not jumping about all over the damn place railway. And I still had the interminably long crossing to England to face - assuming that I could drag my poor stomach onto the boat, that was.

The worst thing was that the journey over to the Emerald Isle the week before had been wonderful. The sun had been shining, the sea had been flat calm and I had really enjoyed it. But twenty minutes across a supposedly sheltered harbour and I was hurling over the side. I prayed that we would be able to find a chemist that sold seasickness powders; I would pay a month's salary for them right now.

Well, a couple of weeks' worth at least.

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Holmes, bless him, saw my very evident discomfiture and suggested that we instead make shift along the coast to Rosslare where we could make the much shorter crossing to Fishguard in Pembrokeshire. I was grateful for that but asked for a day in the small harbour town to recover which he acceded to. That short delay was to drag us into our next case, and a meeting with someone I had thought to be (and would later wish fervently to have been) quite unreal.

I did not pretend to have high tastes when it came to literature and one of my guilty pleasures was the weekly feature in the 'Strand' magazine (which has other excellent story-writers, by the way!) concerning the activities of the fictional Doctor 'Jumping' Jack Calderon at the Bel-Air General Hospital in the United States. He was in so many ways the perfect doctor and I could well relate to the trials of a young and handsome medic whose sparkling eyes and lantern-jaw had women (and men) swooning every time he drew near.

I can just _hear_ someone rolling their eyes at me, the villain! Harrumph!

They do say that one should strive never to meet those one idolizes, and I was about to find out how true that was. Holmes and I had just finished breakfast – yes he had had half my bacon; that had not changed just because we were in another part of the United Kingdom – when a gentleman approached our table. He was a strikingly handsome blond-haired fellow of about thirty years of age, tall and debonair with sparkling blue eyes and a merry smile. Just like my he.... like a certain fictional character that I may or may not have read about on the odd occasion.

“Gentlemen”, he said, “my name is Doctor James Kildare. May I be permitted to join you?”

Holmes nodded our assent and the man sat down. 

“I work at the Bellora Sanatorium”, he said, “a little way out of town. We are somewhat isolated and yet news always seems to reach us before it does most people. When I heard that a famous detective was in town I realized that it was an opportunity not to be passed up.”

My eyes narrowed. He was giving my friend the same sort of predatory look that I had seen from that infernal Cornish fisherman Mr. Trevelyan back in the Scilly Isles, and on more than one occasions when I had to treat Mr. Campbell Kerr's 'boys' in Baker Street several of whom leered far too much even for their profession. Holmes's cousin Mr. Garrick's lover Mr. Benjamin Jackson-Giles was the worst for that; I do not know why Holmes insisted on calling him 'Benji' as I was sure it only encouraged him. It was bad enough having him leering at my... at Holmes; if still more men started doing it I would pou.... probably not be happy.

“You have a case for us?” Holmes asked, smiling slightly for some reason. 

The only moderately good-looking fellow got in another leer before answering.

“I am not sure”, he said. “It is all very curious. I only came to this area four years ago so I had to look it up, but do either of you recall the case of a Mr. Charlie Peace?”

I flinched instinctively at the name. It will mean nothing to modern generations but the original Charlie Peace had been a notorious burglar and double murderer whose criminal excesses had shocked even a Victorian England not unused to such horrors. He had been caught and quite rightly hung some seven years since, to the relief of everyone. I supposed that it was a moderately common name so there had to have been other Charlie Peaces out there somewhere, although I personally would have changed my name had another 'John Watson' committed such foul and unspeakable acts.

“I do”, I said. “A very dangerous fellow, of whom the world was well rid.”

“Indeed”, he said (I noticed that he continued to stare at Holmes rather than acknowledge me, which I considered most rude). “As I am sure you gentlemen are aware the name is not uncommon, and about a year ago we had a fellow sign himself into the Sanatorium for a period of rest under the name 'Mr. Charlie Peace'.”

A maid brought some more coffee and Doctor Kildare made a point of allowing Holmes to have the first cup. I distrusted him even more; only I knew my friend well enough to do that!

“My inquiries and my examinations of the gentleman showed that that was indeed his name”, the nuisance said, “and that he had a brother David who lived in a large house just outside of the town. The two were twins – fraternal, not identical – and came from a small village called Castletownsend some way west of here. I can only presume that they have fared very differently in life; Mr. David Peace is quite rich while his brother has little or nothing. They certainly do not get on, of that I am sure.”

He paused, took a sip of his coffee and managed to leer at Holmes yet again. Now I definitely did not trust the rogue!

“While at the Sanatorium Mr. Charlie Peace has gone so far as to threaten the life of his brother on two separate occasions”, he said. “When I approached Mr. David Peace on the matter last week he, a little to my surprise I might say, took it as a serious threat. He has decided to hasten his plans to sell his estate and quit the country, and is planning to leave on the 'Doric' when she calls here on Thursday two days from now.”

_(Queenstown, renamed from the original Cove after a visit from Queen Victoria in 1849, was the principal port of call for westbound liners because of its closeness to Cork, taking many Irishmen and Irishwomen to a new life across the Atlantic. Much later it became associated with two tragic ships; the 'Doric''s fellow White Star Line ship the 'Titanic' made its last port of call there on its maiden and last voyage in 1912, and three years after that the Cunard liner 'Lusitania' was foully sunk by a German U-boat south-west of the port. It changed its name to Cobh, the Irish for Cove, at the time of the Irish Free State's creation). <.i>_

_“Hence we may presume that he takes the threat seriously”, Holmes said, downing his coffee in one go as per usual. Doctor Kildare looked suitably impressed and managed to throw in another leer._

_“Indeed”, he said. “The problem is that Mr. Charlie Peace has only signed himself in as a voluntary patient at the Sanatorium. There is nothing to stop him leaving it and carrying out such an attack.”_

_Holmes thought for a moment._

_“I know now where I have heard that name before”, he said. “I am a violinist myself; is not Mr. David Peace a violinist of some repute?”_

_Doctor Kildare nodded._

_“Both brothers have the talent”, he said. “Mr. Charlie Peace did have a position with an orchestra in Cork but his character was such that he quickly lost it. One of the nurses said that she heard him play one time and described it as 'heavenly'.”_

_“We must strive to ensure that his brother reaches America rather than heaven”, Holmes said. “It does sound a most intriguing case, doctor. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. We shall visit Mr. David Peace today.”_

_The doctor smiled at him. To me it looked more like another leer but I kept my opinion to myself._

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“I would have thought that you would like meeting a real-life Doctor Jack Calderon”, Holmes teased as we were driven out to Mr. David Peace's house. My friend had spent the morning making certain inquiries in the town and was evidently pleased enough with the result to find the time to annoy me, worse luck.

“I only rarely read such trifles”, I said loftily.

“Oh, I had thought you were more interested in it”, he sighed. “I heard recently that there was even a book of his collected adventures published for the United States market.”

“I know”, I said. “I went round all the bookshops around Baker Street but none of them was able to get.....”

One day. One day I would learn to think _before_ opening my mouth and firmly implanting both feet. His eyes twinkled at my confession.

“So you _are_ interested!” he beamed. “That is most fortunate. Luke has a friend who owns a shop that can get almost any book, even foreign ones, and he has promised to secure me a copy for your Christmas present this year.”

I was grateful for such thoughtfulness.

“Besides”, he went on, “the real Doctor Kildare is quite handsome, is he not?”

And there went the damn gratitude! Harrumph!

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The Victorian Gothic novel has, perhaps predictably, faded in popularity in this modern age but those acquainted with it will recall how the action always seemed to take place in a lonely isolated building, designed by someone who had been eating the wrong sort of mushrooms, For some considerable time. The skies would be dark, the wind would be howling and there would probably be the odd bat (or at least a shadow of some winged creature that one fervently hoped was a bat!) flying around. I myself rarely if ever wasted my time reading such literary trash and if anyone said otherwise I would pou... probably not be happy, but I knew all too well how things worked and was glad that such scenarios were restricted to fiction.

Except, of course, here. Typically the rain was becoming a thunderstorm as our sorry little carriage made its way up to a dark be-towered monstrosity whose only redeeming feature was the barrage of trees that spared its unfortunate neighbours from having to look directly at it. It was not yet two o' clock in the afternoon but the night seemed to be closing in already. The building was dark and unwelcoming, and looking at it as we approached I had the distinct impression that it had not been well maintained. A strong wind might well topple it with us inside!

I shuddered because it was cold. No other reason.

As we stood on the steps and our carriage-driver departed with an impressive turn of speed that he had not shown on the way up, I could hear the sound of a violin playing from inside the house although I did not recognize the tune. The leering Doctor Kildare had arranged the meeting so I knew that we were expected. 

The music stopped moments after we rang the bell and the manservant who opened the door to us looked us up and down disdainfully (which was unfair as Holmes was again looking fairly presentable). We were then shown into a small waiting-room while he went to inform his master of our arrival. 

Eventually the manservant returned to usher us through a cold hall to a large door that would have better fitted the far end of a drawbridge. The fact that it opened with an ominous creak did nothing to settle my frayed nerves but I kept a calm and steady demeanour. I was not afraid.

_“Nervous?”_

How I (mostly) suppressed what was a very manly and not at all high-pitched expression of surprise at the words of a genius who was far closer than I had thought, I do not know. I shot him a dirty look and he smiled innocently. Bastard!

“Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, sir”, the manservant announced before withdrawing.

A man stepped forward into the firelight and I did not have to have been a doctor to see that he was in very poor physical condition. He could have been anything between thirty and sixty-five; he was so gaunt that it was hard to tell. A violin hung loosely from his hand and he looked at us in something like surprise.

“You came?” he said softly. “Good.”

My fevered brain chose that particular moment to remind me that if we were both murdered out here, our bodies might never be found. I told it to shut up!

The fellow replaced the violin in a plush-looking blue-lined case and closed it, then sat in his chair. I presumed that we were expected to take the couch and Holmes followed me over to sit opposite our host.

“We are here about your brother”, my friend said. 

I noticed that as the man sighed, even his breathing was difficult.

“Charlie and I have been here nearly a whole year now”, he sighed. “In that time we've gone from close kin to him wanting to murder me. All because of money.”

“We were both good violinists, gentlemen, but he was much the better. Unfortunately he did not have the wits to use his God-given talent; as fast as money came in he would spend it. Then our grandfather died and we both came into a substantial sum of money – but with a catch. Grandpa Jo had Charlie's measure good and proper; we both had to live off just the interest from the capital for six months. It was enough at a pinch but of course he wanted more and got himself in gaol for a time, so forfeited everything for want of a few extra drinks down the pub.”

“What happened to his inheritance?” Holmes asked.

“Grandpa arranged it so that, if either of us messed up, their money would go to the church”, he said. “I think he suspected that if he left it all to me then Charlie might.... well, as you have seen. He also left us a bit of land up in Larne in Ulster, which adjoins a convent. It is not worth that much but if it was given to the sisters they could sell it along with their own land – they want to move anyway; their place is falling down around them, I hear – and make a decent profit.”

“Doubtless they would spare a few prayers for a generous benefactor”, Holmes smiled. “Though I do not see precisely where your brother fits into all this as of now.”

“As I am sure your medical friend can see, I am in poor shape”, our host said. “It is a condition that they tell me is hereditary and both Charlie and I have it, though he is in better shape despite his lifestyle. I have never wanted to marry, knowing that any sons or daughters I had would almost certainly be afflicted thus. I am not in any pain nor likely to pass on any time soon, but I will never be what they call 'whole'.”

“All my money, including the church lands of which I am temporary guardian because of his past actions, goes to Charlie in the event of my death. He surely needs it; he is in hock to all the sharkies – the moneylenders; that is what we call them round these parts – for a serious amount. I was prepared to settle his debts before leaving but with the threats that he has made against me of late I am no longer so inclined. Unfortunately MacFaddyen – my lawyer – is a friend of his and I do not trust him when it comes to making a new will. I am sure he could word it in such a way that it could easily be challenged, or that some clever trick might render it invalid in some way.”

Holmes thought for a moment.

“I have an idea”, he said. “But I would need you to be guided by me in this.”

“Of course, sir”, our host said.

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I noticed one odd thing as we left. Leaving as well as departing Holmes seemed to spend a time staring after the manservant. The fellow had seemed unremarkable enough and I wondered why?

“Was something wrong with his appearance?” I asked as we were being driven away. “Or do you think that he is working for the man's brother, perhaps?”

“They say that every man has his price”, Holmes said, a little sententiously, I thought. “But no. I am quite sure that the manservant is not working for Mr. Charlie Peace.”

As so often I had the sense that there was more to his words than it seemed. And as so often it was followed by the knowledge that there was little or no chance of my ever finding out just what until he told me, whereon it would seem as LeStrade back in London would have said, bleedin' obvious!

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I wondered if Holmes would mount some sort of guard against the murderous Mr. Charlie Peace but it seemed not. We did not even go to the Sanatorium to interview the latter although at least that spared us from the attentions of a certain leering doctor which I did not miss in the least. 

On Thursday however the pest came to us.

“Mr. Charlie Peace has disappeared!” he exclaimed. 

“I expected as much”, Holmes said calmly.

We both stared at him.

“How could you expect that?” I asked. 

“I am glad that you have come into town, sir”, Holmes said (I noticed that he had evaded my question) “because I fully expect there to be an important development in the case today.”

I scowled as I caught Doctor Kildare leering at my friend again. I thought silently to myself that my only blessing was that we were far from London, and would soon be leaving this not the least bit attractive fellow behind us for good.

“What development?” he asked. “It will have to be soon. Mr. David Peace and his manservant have to come into town today to catch the tender early this afternoon. I have received a telegram this morning asking me to visit a friend of mine in Cork ,so I shall miss their departure.”

“I would advise you not to go”, Holmes said to the surprise of both of us. “You should go and wire your friend to confirm their request, whereon you will find that they did not send that message.”

“How could you know that?” the doctor asked suspiciously.

“Because someone wanted you out of the way today”, Holmes said. “Your presence here might well have been a hindrance to what has been a very cleverly planned crime. If you do not believe me, kindly step across to the post-office and wire them to check.”

The nuisance looked at him uncertainly (and somehow managed yet another leer, damn the fellow!) but did as he was told before annoyingly returning to join us. If the message was indeed genuine then he could always do as we had memorably done and take the direct ferry across to Cork rather than the long railway route. The boat might even sink with any luck.

Someone's head-shaking was just _annoying!_

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Just under an hour later the pestilential medic got his answer when a boy ran up with a telegram, which he read. His face dropped.

“Bill did not send me a message”, he said, frowning. “But why would anyone want me out of the way?”

I bit my lip to prevent myself from saying something that I would not have regretted in the slightest, and held my hand close to my side to prevent myself from raising it. Holmes shot me the inevitable sharp look, then smiled and gestured to the approaching figure of a policeman.

“I rather think that the answer to that draws nigh”, he said. “Greetings, constable.”

My friend had pointed out Constable Patrick Flint to me the other day, a tall and angular young fellow who, I suspected, was not as simple as his open face suggested. He came up to us and nodded to Holmes.

“Looks as if you were right, sir”, he said dourly. “They pulled a body out of the harbour half an hour ago and Mr. David Peace has already identified it as his brother.”

“Already?” I asked surprised.

“They were in the restaurant opposite, him and his manservant all ready to depart this afternoon”, the constable explained. “Looks like the end of Mr. Charlie Peace - again.”

“Not quite”, Holmes said. “Where is the body, constable?”

“Taken to the mortuary, sir”, the man said. “Why?”

“We need to see it”. Holmes said firmly.

“I don't think Mr. David would....”

“We are talking murder here”, Holmes said firmly. “A murder that has been most successfully covered up thus far. Constable, I know that it is irregular but the three of us need to see that body. Right now!”

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I took a deep breath before nodding to the constable who looked pale himself. He drew back the cloth over the dead man. There was an astonished gasp from behind me.

_“Who the blazes is that?”_

We all turned to look at Doctor Kildare, who was staring at the body in astonishment.

“That's Mr. Charlie Peace, sir”, the constable said, clearly confused. “He was a patient of yours, wasn't he?”

“I have no idea who this fellow is, Paddy”, the doctor said firmly, “but he is _not_ Mr. Charlie Peace. I would stake my life on that!”

“Then who the hell is it?” the constable demanded.

“That”, Holmes said flatly, “is something that we may never know.”

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I did not smirk when Holmes told our leering medical acquaintance that he should stay out of sight when we met Mr. David Peace before he left. 

I did not smirk _that_ much! And someone had better cut the knowing looks if he wanted any bacon tomorrow morning!

“Paddy”, Mr. Peace said clearly surprised at the policeman's presence. “Come to see us off?”

“Indeed, sirs”, Constable Flint said dourly. “If you don't mind....”

He moved faster than I would have thought possible and had Mr. Peace handcuffed before he could do anything to stop him. Holmes had similarly moved round behind the manservant whom he had in turn restrained. Both men struggled against their binds, but in vain.

“What is the meaning of this, Paddy?” Mr. Peace demanded angrily. “I shall have you sacked for this!”

“Mr. David Peace”, the constable said, “I arrest you on charges of murder and fraud. “ 

Then he turned to the manservant.

“I likewise arrest you on charges of murder and fraud - _Mr. Charlie Peace!”_

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“It was very cleverly planned”, Holmes began. “The brothers set out to defraud a great number of people and nearly succeeded.”

He had promised to explain what had happened to us over dinner bought for us all, to which the constable had understandably not objected. Unfortunately we were also plus one meddlesome and only borderline attractive medic.

“The characters of the two brothers intrigued me”, Holmes went on looking at me for some reason, “and I saw through their plot quite soon. For example there was the violin playing.”

“But both brothers played the violin”, I objected. He smiled.

“True”, he said, “and you remember that we heard violin music from the house when we visited. But that piece, 'La Dolheureuse' or just 'Sadness', is exceptionally demanding to play; I have never mastered it myself. When playing such a piece even using the rest leaves a discernible mark on the collar or neck. There was indeed just such a mark – but it was on the neck of the manservant, not on Mr. David Peace! On making further inquiries I found that that man was hardly ever seen around town and had certainly never been seen with Mr. Charlie Peace. Because he _was_ Mr. Charlie Peace.”

“Mr. Charlie Peace lives the low-life and runs up huge debts, as we were told”, he went on. “That was where the contrast in character came in; no-one spotted that his brother David was also deeply in debt. Indeed, had he died then his brother would have inherited virtually nothing except the convent land which was covenanted and could not be sold. The two of them planned to leave their creditors far behind them and decamp to the New World, where they would doubtless start the whole ramp again.”

“Unfortunately they needed a scapegoat – a body that could be identified as Mr. Charlie Peace. That, doctor, was why the false telegram was needed, otherwise there was the risk that you might do what you did and identify the body as not your patient. They murdered some poor vagrant whose only crime was to bear a vague resemblance to Mr. Charlie Peace, whose 'brother' David was handily sat nearby and was able to save the police a lot of work by identifying the body before swiftly departing the country.”

“The bastards!” the constable ground out. Holmes nodded.

“Indeed”, he said. “Fortunately they will soon be somewhere rather warmer than the New World, so the doctor and I can return to London.”

I groaned inwardly at the prospect of the sea-journey ahead of me. Holmes turned to me.

“I spoke to Mr. MacFaddyen, and he said that it would help if someone went to Larne to speed the transfer of those lands to the convent”, he said. “Also, the crossing to Portpatrick is far shorter than the one to Fishguard.”

I _knew_ that there was a reason I liked him.

“England sounds most attractive”, Doctor Kildare said. “Especially some of the sights in it. I may go there myself one day.”

I gave him such a look. Over my dead body! _Or his!_

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The Irish justice system moved fast even allowing for the fact that both brothers' guilt was beyond question; they both pleaded guilty and were dropped almost before we were out of the country. Holmes took me via Dublin and we spent a pleasant day touring the sights, then continued on to Larne and its convent. 

Where the Mother Superior, seventy if she was a day, went and simpered at him! I hated Ireland!

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	14. Case 109: The Adventure Of The Slipshod Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1885\. Cat hair and circumstance combine to make the irascible Inspector Fraser Macdonald, Gregson's and LeStrade's superior, ask questions about a murder that he had seemed to have solved years back. But he underestimates just who he is dealing with here.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

Typically the short crossing between Larne (with its free simpering Mother Superiors!) and Portpatrick was totally calm, and I stepped off the boat feeling refreshed and cheerful. It was a morning sailing which meant that we would have the day to take a couple of trains across Galloway, an area of the country I had often read about but had never visited, and spend a few hours in the Border City of Carlisle before catching the night sleeper back to London.

Galloway – the counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire in south-west Scotland – entranced me with its quiet beauty. Holmes had spoken highly of the area which he had visited while I was in Egypt, and I felt sorry for all those Victorian families who followed their Queen to the barren and much colder Highlands when this beauteous (and slightly less chilly!) landscape was so much closer at hand. I could not know the anguish that would pass between then and the second of my two return visits which lay some eighteen years into the future. Nor that said visit would occur in the final year of Holmes's long and illustrious career because soon after it he......

No. Not yet.

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Of all the sights I might have expected to see on the platforms at Citadel Station, the polished dome of a beefy London policeman was most definitely not on the list. Especially as there was no cake in the vicinity.

 _“LeStrade?”_ I said to Holmes, gesturing across to where the down train had just arrived. My friend followed him line of sight; he did not look as surprised as I might have thought.

“I told my cousin Luke that he could use his sources to find me for LeStrade and a few other friends”, he said, leading the way to the footbridge to intercept our friend. “That was why I had that telegram at Portpatrick; he wanted to meet us here.”

I had wondered about that telegram.

“I did not mention it because you said how much you were looking forward to Galloway”, he went on. “And there are but a very few people on that list. Including yourself, of course.”

I reddened with pleasure. Fortunately the sergeant spotted us at that precise moment – thank the Lord as I could definitely detect another Moment looming! - and we waited for him on our platform.

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“I'm right sorry to be tracking you gentlemen down like this”, LeStrade said as we sat down in a small waiting-room. “But this is sort of urgent.”

I had an unpleasant feeling that our wonderful first-class sleeper compartments which I had so looked forward to when Holmes had booked them from Dublin were not to be experienced any time soon.

“ _Sort of_ urgent?” I asked. He blushed.

“I might be asking Mr. Holmes a favour as regards the big boss.”

I stared at him incredulously, wondering if I had heard him aright. Inspector Fraser Macdonald was as I have mentioned before his and his rival Gregson's boss, and from the few times that I had come across him I had thought him a singularly unpleasant human being. Some seven years younger than LeStrade and with family in the service, his only redeeming feature (in my humble opinion) was that unlike some less developed species of humanity he would not hold our friend's class against his career development, although that that was only because the massive fellow hated all those around him pretty much equally (he was known at the station as 'The Scowling Scot' although like he me was English if with Caledonian antecedents). He seemed to regard the rest of the human race - always assuming that he was a member! - as a plague to make his own life more difficult. That LeStrade might come all this way to.... wait a minute.

“Why _have_ you come all this way?” I asked curiously. “You could just as easily have come round to Baker Street tomorrow?”

He would have been round anyway as tomorrow was Mrs. Hudson's chocolate-cake day. And before any readers say how cynical it is of me to even suggest such a thing, he had not missed any of the last six and it would have been a longer run had he not been down with the flu some weeks back, which I knew because I had treated him for it and Mrs. Hudson had most generously saved a large slice of cake for him which I had had to deliver (like with Gregson before she had for some reason demanded that I get a receipt, which I would have found insulting had she not had her pistol to hand). Seeing a grown man slavering over something like a piece of cake, even if it was chocolate.... why was Holmes shaking his head at me like that?

“The boss came to us from these parts”, LeStrade explained, “from the Cumberland & Westmorland Constabulary. I know everyone thinks he's one hundred per cent Scottish but it's only his grandfather on his mother's side of the family. He was a small-town copper in a place by the sea, Allonby. It's so out of the way that it doesn't even have a railway station; the nearest stop is Aspatria six miles away.”

“How did he end up in London, then?” I asked. LeStrade went red for some reason.

“His father's brother knew a vacancy was coming up in the smoke so they got him down here”, the sergeant said. “Way before he should have qualified for it but as they say it's not what you know but who. Then again, as I've said before I've never found anyone in the service who says he doesn't deserve his post, and you both know how rare that is.”

That was true, I had to concede. Our cake-loving and adversarial sergeants apart, the Metropolitan Police Service had more bitching in it that a street full of ladies' hairdressers! And 'someone' could stop tutting at me _right now!_

“Cumberland's gain was our loss then”, I said.

“I am afraid that there is rather more to the inspector than you might realize, Watson”, Holmes said quietly. “His parents' marriage hit the buffers when his uncle discovered that his father had been hitting his mother. Luckily the uncle got to him first; he was two months in the hospital and died two years after that; he never recovered so they said. The inspector insisted that she stay with him in London and paid for everything until she found happiness with someone far more human.”

I felt reproved, and rightly so. I knew that the inspector's marriage had been arranged by his late father and that it was a bitterly unhappy one – just how much so, we would both shortly realize – but had not known that about him. The poor fellow.

“He's not liked at the station as you know, but he is respected”, LeStrade said, “and looking around the Met I can see we could have done a lot worse. I bet his mother was glad to come south; it's warmer that's for sure!”

I had noticed how being those few extra latitudes further north were making the burly policeman shiver. But then he never did like leaving the City, if only because like my friend he was sure that a major crime wave would break out in his absence. Perhaps a mass outbreak of cake thievery?

“You do not really like your superior”, Holmes said, shaking his head at me for some reason. “Yet you are asking for us to help him. May we know why?”

LeStrade blushed again.

“Two things”, he said. “I know I say he's hard, but he's always _fair_ and for someone like me that's important. He came down like a ton of bricks on Clegg – your remember him sir, the one you helped do for rigging evidence – when he was working alongside me on the Betts Street Case. He was the one that called me 'Mr. Holmes's lap-dog', the bastard!”

I had to turn away to hide a smile. The thought of the brutish policeman as anyone's lap-dog was..... interesting. Holmes shot me another sharp look.

“The second thing?” my possibly-friend asked.

“This case sounds _weird!_ ” the sergeant said. “I've come across some odd things in my time but this.... it's downright bizarre!”

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“The trouble is”, LeStrade said, “this was a case the boss put to bed while he was serving up here. One of his last and quite big for the time; it likely helped win him that promotion. Now someone's stirring it up again for no apparent reason. 'Course you gentlemen know how an organization as big as the police service works; three hundred miles is nothing to gossip especially with the telegraph and all these days. If it emerged that he'd not done everything by the book then he might get transferred.”

“And who knows what we might get in his place”, Holmes agreed.

_(I have mentioned before Holmes's concerns that our two policeman friends, LeStrade and Gregson, might come to blows one day soon as they had joined the service on the same day and would all other things being equal become eligible to apply for promotion at the same time. The Metropolitan Police Service's guardian angel had saved the day last time by causing two vacancies at the level of sergeant to fall open in quick succession but I doubted that they could be that lucky again. And there was always the dreadful possibility that they might come to blows over a slice of cake in Baker Street!)._

“Tell us about the case”, the resident know-all prompted, rolling his eyes at me for some reason.

“As I said it was almost the last case he did before he came south”, LeStrade said. “It had seemed straightforward enough at the time. A rich fellow called Mr. Terence Knight owned a large seafront house in the town. He died – the doctor was a bit suspicious but the fellow had been ill for a while - and against all expectations he left all his money to his cleaner, a Mrs. Henrietta Ventnor. Nothing improper though tongues wagged, as they will; Mrs. Ventnor's husband had died some years back and she was quite attractive so they said. If she'd have had a face like the back of a horse it might've been better!”

“Mr. Knight's only child was a Mrs. Virginia Miller – divorced and, according to the locals, no surprise there – so she'd expected to inherit, but he left her one farthing! She was suspected of his death and fled to France, but she must have realized the game was up and drowned herself off Dover a few days later. Good riddance was the general opinion.”

“That seems in order”, I said. “What happened to the cleaner, Mrs. Ventnor?”

“She sold the house – probably wise; it made a pretty penny because the council wanted to buy it to extend their seafront park - as well as getting her away from all the gossips – and bought herself a small place in somewhere called Bowness up the coast. Another place miles from civilization.”

“I know of that”, I said. “It is where Hadrian's great wall ends.”

“Technically correct”, Holmes smiled. “That is where the physical wall ends. Although one should not exclude the chain of defensive forts that extend along the cost as far as Maryport.”

I stared at him curiously. That sort of thing was my field of interest not his, and he had said on more than one occasion that he only took useful information into his mind rather than clutter it up with _imponderabilia_. Plus we had never had a case in this area before; I was sure that he had only been in Scotland and Wales during my time in Egypt.

_(I am going to have to bend my rules about not mentioning undocumented cases here, as Holmes's connections to Cumberland arose out of a small but socially important case that he undertook during The Early Hiatus. He did mention it himself briefly as part of a long stay at Inverness in the Highlands, and a major part of it involved a place in the Lakes county; I cannot be more specific than that)._

“That pretty much seemed that until a few weeks ago”, LeStrade said. “Then some stranger started asking questions in and around Allonby, about the case. 'Course in a rural area that sort of things immediately drew people's attention and one of the boys at the local station sent the boss a letter about it. I was there when he got it.”

“How did you know what was in the letter?” Holmes asked.

“He went a really funny colour”, LeStrade said. “I was worried; you know how red-skinned he is – the ladies in the canteen call him Rufus behind his back - but he went white all over. I know he was worried over something else before, though I don't know what; likely something too big for my pay grade. He told me about the case and I suggested bringing you in on it.”

Holmes pressed his long fingers together and thought for a moment.

“What are your plans now, LeStrade?” he asked at last.

The sergeant looked surprised but answered.

“I thought I'd go to the station here and see if they have an empty cell for the night”, he said. “A bit irregular but you know how tight they are on expenses just now. The boss paid for my train ticket and I've got to be back by tomorrow evening.”

“Well, I see no reason to waste good tickets”, Holmes said taking our own tickets out and handing them to our friend. “These are first-class tickets for the night sleeper which leaves in a few hours.”

LeStrade looked shocked.

“Sir, you can't....”

“We would only waste them”, Holmes said, “as we are going to look for accommodation in the town – hopefully _sans_ iron bars – then tomorrow we shall head down to Allonby and begin our investigations.”

LeStrade beamed.

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“This must surely be one of the coldest trails that you have ever followed”, I said.

It was the following day. We had seen a still disbelieving LeStrade off on the sleeper – I doubt that the fellow had ever travelled first-class in his life – and found the Station Hotel to be more than adequate to our simple needs. Although any establishment that served both coffee and bacon for breakfast was bound to win over my genius friend!

“We shall begin our inquiries at the station in Aspatria”, he said. “That presumably is where the villainess would have decamped after her crime began to unravel and they may remember her there.”

“After all these years?” I asked incredulously.

“This is a very small, very insular railway company”, he said. “You may be surprised.”

I supposed that that was true although I still thought that it was a long shot. The Maryport & Carlisle Railway was one of the smaller companies in the country, snug in its corner of the north-western county between the industrial ports and mines of south-west Cumberland on one side, and the Border City on the other. Unlike many railway companies of the time it was also highly profitable; acting on my friend's advice I had purchased shares in it some years back and they had never failed to yield a most welcome dividend.

Our little train steamed into Aspatria Station right on time and after the other passengers had departed Holmes sought out the stationmaster, a Mr. Percy Maine, and asked if there was anyone here from the time of the case. His long shot turned out to be a good one; both the stationmaster himself and the ticket-vendor were the same as at the time of the case although the latter was off duty just then.

“But he lives in the railway cottages, sir”, the stationmaster said, “just outside the station. Number three, with the blue door. You'll find him there.”

_(I feel that I should re-iterate at this point how much my regard for Holmes increased by the way he talked to what were then called 'the lower orders'. I had seen too many of our class talk down to such people as if they were in some way less than human, and had always thought that such behaviour said rather more about those giving such treatment than those receiving it. Holmes could be brusque at times but that was with anyone, regardless of class, and as I have said before he had a charm which worked on just about everyone. And no, I was not jealous of that at all, and that had bloody well better not be another damn smirk!)._

“Do you remember anything from those times?” Holmes asked looking far too pleased with himself for a bacon-stealing consulting detective (all three rashers that morning!). “On a related issue, have you been asked about them of late?”

A strange look came over the man's face. 

“Someone _was_ asking about it, sir”, he said. “Only the other week. Short gentleman, almost round he was so fat, and quite young. Not a local, by his accent I'd say he was from the West Country or thereabouts. I didn't tell him anything because to be honest I didn't quite trust him. But there was something at the time though I thought nothing of it back then. Only later when it was all done and dusted.”

“Go on”, Holmes pressed.

“A few days before he died old Mr. Knight had a box sent down to London”, he said. “Huge thing; one of those antique Spanish chests and about six foot across the front. My wife has a small one like it, lots of brass, and even at a quarter the size it's a devil to keep clean.”

“But you said nothing at the time?” I wondered. The stationmaster blushed.

“Thing was sir, none of us could stand Mrs. Miller. She was a right... uh, she was no lady, that's all I can say. Her husband had run off to Foreign Parts somewhere and the only wonder was why he'd been dumb enough to have married her in the first place! We were all chuffed when good old Mrs. Ventnor got everything, 'specially with her having lost her husband less than a year before and all. Mrs. Miller went to the house – her father's house - but Sergeant Macdonald as was, he caught her there.”

“So?” I asked.

“All Mr. Knight's silver and stuff was gone, sir”, the stationmaster said. “I just thought that, you know, that was what had to have been in the chest. He sent it to someone for safe keeping or maybe for them to have. 'Cause at the time Mrs. Miller challenged the will in court and we thought she might still get everything so.... um.... you know.”

“Your memory was suddenly rather 'hit and miss', stationmaster”, Holmes smiled. “Quite understandable, given the circumstances. We shall adjourn to ask your ticket-vendor if his memory was also suddenly rather 'hit and miss'.”

The stationmaster blushed deeply but a generous coin from Holmes seemed to remedy that.

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Mr. Andrew Farragut was a small, bespectacled man of unprepossessing appearance who lived with his wife in their small cottage. I have heard the phrase 'not enough room to swing a cat' but his 'main room' really was; I felt that I had to breathe in to avoid taking up too much space! Holmes explained why we were here and once again there was a definite reaction.

“Your stationmaster told us that someone had been asking people about this case only recently”, Holmes said smoothly. “A tall heavily tanned fellow with a most distinctive moustache of the sort they call a 'handle-bar'. A notable red birthmark on the bridge of his nose and he spoke in a foreign accent, possibly Germanic.”

I had to fight hard to constrain my reaction. That was not how the stationmaster had described the questioner at all!

“That's him exactly, sir”, the ticket-vendor said only adding to my confoundment. “Asking about the case after all these years; it fair put the wind up me.”

“I doubt that you would remember much after all this time”, Holmes said.

“Funny you should say that, sir”, the ticket-vendor said. “His asking – and there was no way I was going to tell some foreigner anything! - set me thinking about it all again. There was something just a bit off back then, though it was such a small thing I thought nothing of it at the time. But perhaps it did mean something.”

“Go on”, Holmes urged. 

“You see, the Company sells through tickets”, the man said, “and I knows that Mrs. Miller offed herself in Kent. But she only bought a ticket from me as far as Euston. I wondered.... why? Why just to there when she could buy all the way to Dover? You know how bad ticket queues can be, sir, and I dare say they're way worse at the big stations up in London.”

“I think that I can see a reason why”, Holmes smiled, “but I need a little more help. Is there anyone else in the area – and I suppose we would be looking at Allonby rather than here – who might know any more?”

The ticket-vendor smiled shyly.

“I probably shouldn't say this sir”, he said, “but you might ask Mrs. Paterson. She keeps Scarlet Cottage over the road from where it all happened in Allonby; it's directly opposite where they're building the new bandstand. She's the biggest gossip in the village if not all of Cumberland!”

“How do you know that?” I asked. The man blushed and his wife giggled.

“She's me bloody sister!” 

I did not laugh. But it was close.

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Holmes had that annoying smile all the way to Allonby, a pleasant carriage ride which took us to what was little more than a village on the Irish Sea. He evidently knew something but was not telling me. The spoilsport!

We did not go straight to Mrs. Paterson's house but to the little post-office where Holmes fired off a telegram. He presumably expected a reply in short order because he suggested lunch at the curiously large hotel set back from the sea-front - did they really have that many people staying in an out of the way place like this? A boy brought the answer while we were just finishing a delicious meal; Holmes tipped him (I thought that both that and those to the railway officials were far too generous but then that was him all over) and he sat back looking content.

“The case is nearly solved”, he said much to my surprise. “There will be an arrest quite soon. Although I am inclined towards a small spot of revenge first.”

“Revenge against whom?” I said, all at sea as per usual. “And solved? How?”

“Mrs. Paterson will complete the picture for us”, he said confidently. 

I had no idea how he could be so sure about a woman he had never even met, but damn the man, he was probably right. Again.

At least there was chocolate cake here, and even better Holmes found it too rich so I had to finish his slice for him. I decided that I quite liked Allonby.

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Mrs. Gwendolen Paterson, predictably, simpered at Holmes. And ignored me completely. I did not pout as 'someone' later claimed; it was just a look of mild annoyance.

“Oh of course I remember the case, dears”, she said, pouring out coffee for us both (I saw Holmes's eyes light up at that). “So, so terrible. Such a way to die.”

I was surprised at that. I had been under the impression thus far that the late Mrs. Miller was gone and very happily forgotten.

“I have a question”, Holmes said. “It concerns Mrs. Ventnor. She had all that money and purchased a house up the coast in Bowness. Did she perchance carry on cleaning?”

That seemed a particularly odd question but she beamed at him so evidently it was a good one. Either that or she had something in her eye. Like far too many women (as well as some Cornish fishermen and Irish doctors) these days!

“No”, she said. “My cousin lives in Kirkanders† not far from her, and he knows someone in her village.”

“I believe that there is a saying”, Holmes smiled. “Justice may be delayed but it is seldom denied.”

“That may or may not be true”, she said. “Tell me Mr. Holmes – do you follow justice or the law?”

“Always justice”, he said. 

“Then let judgement run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

 _From the Book of Amos_ , I thought. _But justice for whom?_

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“Who was the telegram from?” I asked as we journeyed back to Aspatria. The coffee and bacon combination at the hotel in Carlisle had as I had expected proven irresistible to my friend and he was in a very good mood.

“LeStrade”, he said. “I wanted to ask him a question, although I suspected that I already knew the answer.”

I just glared at him. He chuckled.

“I wanted to know if Inspector Macdonald was at work this week”, he said.

“And?” I pressed.

“He has taken a week's leave to attend to the funeral of a close family friend in Cornwall.”

I wondered that someone like the inspector should have a friend, but clearly I was not to be enlightened any time soon. I did not grit my teeth as we returned to the Border City. One of these days I was going to be smarter than him and work out something before he did, damnation. 

And one day he would stop shaking his head like that! It was so damn _annoying!_

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Rather oddly three days then passed without Holmes seeming to make any efforts to pursue the case any further. I know that he sent off and received more telegrams but bearing in mind our last port of call was not much more than a dozen or so miles west of the Border City, his lack of activity seemed odd. Although I did not complain as it gave me time to explore the place and its Roman remains, and we even had an excursion to see one part of the great wall that had survived more or less intact. 

On the fourth day we left Carlisle Citadel Station for a second time. And in a most unusual manner!

Probably unique amongst railways of this time, the Port Carlisle Railway still used horse-drawn carriages so our speed was... well, it was not. Even stranger were the frankly bizarre seating arrangements which seemed to have moved across from the stagecoach era. Our first-class compartment was in the front half of a tiny four-wheel coach and accessed through a central door. Second-class was in the back and, incredibly, third-class was simply two short benches along the running-boards! I suppose the only blessing of our steady trot was that if anyone did chance to fall off, then they would probably survive with only minor injuries!

“We could always come back via third-class?” Holmes suggested slyly. “Think of all that fresh Cumberland air!”

I glared at him. He was yet again in imminent danger of having to investigate his own damn murder!

Fortunately we made it the ten miles or so to Port Carlisle without mishap; Bowness where the rich Mrs. Ventnor lived was about a mile further on. We were met on the station platform by a tall blond fellow in his fifties, definitely someone in service by his appearance although what he was doing here only the Good Lord (and Holmes) knew.

“Mr. Holmes”, he said.

“Mr. Beckton”, Holmes said. “Thank you for coming.”

I had no idea who this person was from Adam. I did not pout at that fact, whatever anyone said.

“The late Mr. Knight's former butler”, Holmes explained as if that made it all obvious (it did not).

The three of us took a carriage the short distance to Bowness which was a small village that lay at the end of the great wall (yes it _did!)_. We drove first to the local police station and after a short stop inside Holmes emerged with three constables; rather a lot for a small village I thought. We then drove in two parties to Guyenne Cottage, a small but well-maintained house on the coast and set a little apart from the rest of the houses.

Holmes strode up to the door and knocked loudly. It was opened by a middle-aged woman who looked visibly alarmed at the sight of Holmes and tried to slam the door on him, but he forced his way in followed by the constables. Moments later they were dragging her out of the house and down the path towards us. Mr. Beckton gasped as they drew near.

_“Madam?”_

She looked at him in shock.

“Beckton? Oh shit!”

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It was some little time later and we were sat in the police station at Bowness. I had seen a carriage drawn up outside as we had all come in, the woman very reluctantly, and had hoped that that and not that death-trap of a railway would be our means of getting back to Carlisle. It was probably faster for one thing!

“This has been a most interesting case”, Holmes told Constable Maxwell. “I would be delighted to tell you all about it. But before I do, may I suggest that you invite the gentleman currently in the back room to step through and join us?”

I thought for a moment that the constable was going to deny my friend but fortunately there was no need. The door to the back room opened and a tall figure stepped through, having to duck to avoid hitting his head on the lintel. 

My mouth fell open. It was Inspector Fraser Macdonald!

“I can see how you have risen to the dizzy heights of inspector, Mr. Macdonald”, Holmes smiled. “You played this scene most prettily, although I was suspicious from the start.”

“About what?” I demanded. Holmes turned to me.

“Some little time back, the inspector here received some new evidence”, he began, “appurtenant to a case from his time in Cumberland that he had long thought solved. Policeman are very parochial and even those who move to the other end of the country maintain a loyalty to their home areas, along with a desire to see justice done. In this case justice had duly been seen to be done.”

He paused.

“Except”, he said, “that it had not been done at all. A crime – _two_ crimes in fact – had been committed and very efficiently covered up. Inspector, I have nearly all the facts but I would know one thing. What was the evidence that made you re-open this inquiry?”

“The woman's clothes, sir”, the behemoth said. “She ordered a whole lot from an expensive place in Carlisle and it was her bad luck that the salesman had moved to the place from Allonby. People change over the years as you know, but what made him suspicious was the cat.”

I was all at sea (again).

“She took a cat shopping?” I asked, confused. The inspector shook his head.

“Cat hair, sir”, he said. “The salesman went and checked the old newspapers in the town library, and found that his memory had been right. She had said back then that she was allergic to cats, but the clothes she had on had cat hair on them, and a lot of it. The salesman himself was allergic which was why he spotted it. He came down to London to tell me about it; he knew me from my Allonby days.”

The woman was guilty because she had acquired a pet? Any further out to sea and I would be back in Ireland!

“Most slipshod of her”, Holmes said reprovingly. “What was important as far as the doctor and I are concerned is the old and, I think, rather unjustifiable tenet in the modern police force that debars officers from personally going back over old cases. You, inspector, had to work a way round that to preserve your own position and yet bring justice - and you used myself and the doctor to effect that.”

The huge policeman had the grace to blush.

“You planned it very well”, Holmes said. “You still had many contacts in the area – the stationmaster, the ticket-vendor, the latter's gossiping sister in the village where one of the murders took place – and they reported some stranger asking questions about the case. As you had known would happen this reached the ears of the local police who decided that you should be informed. You then found that we were travelling through the area and arranged for LeStrade to ask us to investigate, having briefed your friends to be as helpful as possible. Unfortunately they were not briefed well enough. The stationmaster gave us a description of the person suddenly looking into this case who of course never existed and, suspecting something was afoot, I then gave a starkly different description to the ticket-vendor who said that I had described them perfectly. One or both had to be lying, never mind the fact that people's memories are rarely that good over such a time frame.”

The inspector smiled at that.

“You were of course not in Cornwall attending to the affairs of a recently passed family friend. I knew that you were somewhere in the vicinity and wanted you to be 'in at the death' so to speak. I delayed obtaining the services of Mr. Beckton and made sure that the hotel receptionist knew that I planned to only visit Bowness today, giving you plenty of time to plan everything. It also enabled the good doctor to fit in some sight-seeing of those old ruins to which he is so partial.”

It was my turn to blush.

“Sure enough, this morning the hotel clerk confirmed that a gentleman matching your description had asked after me saying that he was a lawyer. We duly decamped here and the woman on her way to Carlisle will soon be undertaking a less pleasant journey to somewhere rather warmer, courtesy of the long drop.”

“I still do not know what happened, though!” I objected (contrary to what 'someone' later claimed it was _not_ a whine!). Holmes turned to me.

“It all comes down to the original crime”, he said. “Double murder.”

“Double?” I asked. He nodded.

“Mrs. Miller somehow finds out about the will of her father”, he said. “She could challenge it in court but that is expensive and risky, especially as it would most likely be a local jury with whom she would not go down at all well. No, she finds a much better way of obtaining what she believes is rightfully hers. Knowing that Mrs. Ventnor is off work for a week, she visits her house and murders her in cold blood, placing her body in a huge Spanish chest that she has borrowed from her father's house.”

I stared at him in shock.

“She has the chest sent away 'on her father's orders”, Holmes said. “She then poisons her own father – she is fortunate that his ill-health prevents too many questions from being asked - and takes all his silver and plate. This is necessary because people will assume that they were what was in the chest; in fact the treasures were most likely sent away to be sold somewhere. Criminals can rarely resist the chance of extra wealth.”

“She meets up with the chest again in London and takes it down to Dover. She then changes identities and becomes 'Mrs. Ventnor', the inheritrix of Mr. Knight's estate. That was the point of a drowning at sea; it would disguise the fact that the body had been dead for some days. As she had hoped, Kent Police duly identify the victim as 'Mrs. Miller' who has clearly taken her own life as the net closed in on her. Naturally she cannot return to Allonby so she moves some distance up the coast to another place with no railway connection. She thinks that she is safe enough and can live off her ill-gotten gains for the rest of her life.”

“But as I said to Mrs. Paterson, justice may be delayed but it is seldom denied. Mrs. Miller's trip to Carlisle arouses the suspicions of the salesman who serves her, and his checking an article concerning the original crime shows that he was right. The real Mrs. Ventnor was known by her neighbours to be strongly allergic to cats, yet the woman before him had cat-hair on her clothes as his own watering eyes told him. He gets word to you, inspector, knowing you from your home town. As I said you played us very well, but I am still happy to have helped you secure justice in this matter.”

“I fixed for one of her old neighbours to call on her, just to check before I started everything”, the inspector said. “He got shown to the house all right but the woman who he had been told was 'Mrs. Ventnor' was the devil daughter all right. Sorry for not being straight with you Mr. Holmes sir, but the force would have come down on me like a ton of bricks if I had had any involvement in an old case.”

“So justice was done in the end”, Holmes smiled. “A most interesting case, gentlemen.”

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It was justice for Mrs. Miller, who paid a belated price for her foul deeds. And a pleasant surprise for Mrs. Ventnor's family, the five of whom split her inheritance between them. Holmes made sure that the settling of the estate proceeded rather more swiftly than the lawyers would doubtless have preferred, and the poor victim's brother, sister, nephew and nieces all shared a most welcome sum among them.

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_Notes:_   
_† Now Kirkandrews-on-Eden_

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	15. Interlude: Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. Holmes makes one of a young man's dreams come true – for which there will later be nearly fatal consequences!

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

I think that especially considering our recent Cumberland trip, now is a good point for me to interrupt Watson's flow of verbiage and introduce a character who would feature several times in our lives later on. Master Chatton Smith.

Although our friend LeStrade might think (with some justification) that his brutal commonness would set back his chances in the Metropolitan Police Service, others faced still higher barriers just to get onto the ladder never mind ascending it. But when the young gentleman not quite turned eighteen who visited me in Baker Street told me what he wanted in those dying days of December, my first thought was that I had somehow crossed into one of those parallel universes that Watson reads about in the magazines that he keeps in his locked bedside cabinet (look, I had been curious!). I would never have thought to have seen or heard it all, especially in my line of work - but seriously, this?

Master Chatton Smith reddened, and as someone of Red Indian extraction (from his great-grandfather) he was some way there already.

“You do not believe me, sir?” he asked.

The young fellow had come to my attention on a small matter concerning a theft at a local hotel, where as a member of the Police Cadets he had shown a sharpness and brilliance that was sadly lacking in most officers these days. So when he had asked if I might do him a favour, I had assumed that he meant to secure him a post as constable (I remembered LeStrade's boy and how even the Metropolitan Police could get things badly wrong at all levels). But of all the people that this fellow would want to.....

Oh. _Oh!_

“Inspector Macdonald is a married man”, I said carefully, not even thinking about inserting the word 'happily' into that sentence. “You do know that?”

He looked shocked.

“Of course sir!” he said forcibly. “I would never think of trying anything like that, even for someone as beautiful as him.”

I could think of many adjectives that could have fairly been applied to the superior of Gregson and LeStrade whom we had recently encountered in the Slipshod Woman case, and I was sure that both the police and the criminal fraternities of London could have come up with many more. I would have wagered ten guineas† that not a single one of them would have ventured within a mile of 'beautiful'.

“You have a crush on him?” I asked. He nodded glumly.

“Just over three years ago he did a speech at my school, to encourage us to join the Cadets”, he said. “That was why I joined. I was right at the front and he was wearing his kilt, so.....”

_Room with a view _, I thought. Even when he was not here Watson was a bad influence on me, the villain.__

__“Then when he was leaving I saw the wind catch his kilt, the boy sighed. “I would never.... well, it would not be _right_ sir, especially for someone as moral as him.”_ _

__That was true, I conceded. The inspector had to be a moral man, or he would surely have murdered that terrible wife of his. And that would have been quite terrible, for I would never have been able to find the high-ranking policeman who had done it._ _

__“I can call in a favour for you”, I said, “but I want your solemn oath that you will never do anything to hurt or harm the inspector's marriage.”_ _

__He looked at me earnestly. He knew as well as I did that that marriage was a complete sham, and that the increasingly brazen behaviour of Mrs. Macdonald was pushing it ever closer towards the cliff-edge. Perhaps.... no, I knew people and this boy was too good for that._ _

__“I swear, sir”, he said. “I would never hurt the inspector!”_ _

__I silently marvelled at the way the Lord arranged things like this – Master Smith would not reach eighteen for another week while the inspector would be thirty-seven two days before him, more than double his tender age! - but nodded._ _

____

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I had as it turned out underestimated just how mysterious a way the Lord was capable of moving in.

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_Notes:_   
_† About £1,150 ($1,400) at 2020 prices._

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	16. Case 110: The Adventure Of The Paradol Chamber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1887\. A man is guilty of two murders, and Watson has conflicting emotions when Holmes decides to do nothing.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

We arrived back from Cumberland – yes I did get to sample first-class sleeper travel again and yes, it was wonderful - to a capital in full swing for Christmas, with all that that entailed. Even criminals seemed to be imbued with at least some small part of festive cheer; I noted that my friend's workload lessened during these times. But this particular season we did not make it to the end of Christmastide with our next case arriving some two days into a New Year which, God willing, would mark fifty years of Queen Victoria on the throne of the British Empire.

I have mentioned before that I mostly avoided reading stories about crime during my time in Egypt as they reminded me of Holmes and England. Only major happenings like the aforementioned Brackhampton Hall shooting and the Easington House affair that I am about to describe drew my attention, and only then because they were so widely talked about by the men who often had little to do out in the desert. I only read such things because I needed to know about them in order to discuss them with the men, whose morale it was part of my job to help maintain.

The Easington House affair happened at the start of 'Eighty-Four and concerned young Lady Alicia Easington, the only daughter of the Imperial Office minister Sir Beresford (he was a patient of my friend Peter Greenwood which was another thing which drew me to this story). Lady Alicia had just married a young bank clerk called Mr. Hilary Gilbertson and they had moved into Hill House, one of her father's London properties, while they sought a place of their own. Sir Beresford had been in the process of trying to sell the place along with several other of his properties so that he might retire to The Lakes. The sale had been delayed due to the sadly all too predictable local council incompetence, as they could not decide whether they wished to purchase the house as building land or not and refused to allow a sale while they tried to first find and then make up their minds. Some things did not change, unfortunately.

I must mention here two other matters pertinent to this case. First, Sir Beresford had recently purchased a five-year commission for his only other child, his son Oughtred who had just left for India to serve as an army doctor (I did not envy him that as I had heard the conditions out there were even worse than the ones I had endured in Egypt). Second and most unusually in this day and age, his son and daughter had been equal co-heirs to his estate making Lady Alicia a fine catch for her new husband.

It was four days after Doctor Oughtred Easington had left the country that tragedy had struck, when two masked robbers had broken into the house and had been surprised by Lady Alicia. She had been struck on the head and had died not long after. The widower Mr. Gilbertson had not unsurprisingly moved out of the house and it had had several tenants since, none of them staying for any length of time. In the odd way that some properties can, it just seemed to have become an unlucky house.

Despite a substantial reward having been offered by Sir Beresford, the robbers had still not been caught some two and a half years later. I remember thinking at the time how I had wished that Holmes had been in London to effect his own brand of justice and clear everything up as he always did. I little knew that that was exactly what I would indeed see happen, and in such a way as to shock even me.

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“I had a visit from a member of the nobility this morning”, Holmes said casually as I unwrapped my scarf at the door. It had been snowing heavily all day with a bitter northerly wind and despite my thick coat I was still cold. “Sir Beresford Easington.”

I frowned for a moment as I tried to recall the name, but then I remembered. Father to the slain Lady Alicia. 

“The poor old fellow”, I said. “At least he has his son back in the country now; he is working as a locum not far from my surgery.”

Holmes looked at me in surprise before seeming to realize something.

“Of course, you missed the paper-boy with your early start today”, he said (I had had to rush off when a client's baby had decided that ten to six in the morning was an excellent time to commence his arrival; I had only just made it for one of the quickest births that I had ever managed). “You had better get out of all those wet clothes while I stoke up the fire and pour you a brandy.”

“Thank you, Mother!” I teased. 

He shook his head at me but smiled.

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I finished reading the article and looked across at my friend. 

“Sir Beresford wants your help with this?” I asked curiously. “It does not really seem in your line of business.”

“A mysterious and unexplained death?” he said. “It seems exactly in my line of business. However this article does leave out certain salient facts which may put things in a rather different light. I shall tell you the whole of it, then you can tell me what you think.”

I nodded, sipped my drink and sat back. The wind was whipping up a storm outside but with a warm fire and my best friend sat across from me, 221B was a wonderful place to be right now.

“After he sold Hill House and certain other parts of his estate”, Holmes began, “Sir Beresford purchased three new properties. For himself a country estate in Westmorland near the famous Lake Windermere; for his absent son a house in Bayswater which was suitable to be adapted for a doctor's practice as well as being close to your famous Harley Street, and for his one-time son-in-law a house in St. John's Wood named Sedbergh House. As you may have read Lady Alicia had made a will directly after her marriage apparently without the knowledge of her blood family. Her moneys reverted to her father during his lifetime but he could only touch the interest, although he could use the capital to purchase items for Mr. Gilbertson hence the new house. Upon her father's death the capital would have passed whole to her husband.”

“Surely such a will was open to challenge?” I asked. Two Property Acts had greatly improved the position of women when it came to holding property during a marriage, but the husband still held the whip hand so to speak.

“Mr. Gilbertson probably could have done that, but he declined”, Holmes said. “He seems to have been well rewarded for his restraint, although to be fair he could not have foreseen that. To continue, Doctor Oughtred Easington had been due to serve for five years in British India but decided to come home in a little under three, buying out the remaining years of his commission. I do not know why; perhaps he found it too hard out there as the climate can break many a man. He returned home two weeks ago and the dramatic events of last night are what his father came to Baker Street to discuss earlier today.”

“Last night Doctor Easington was invited round to his brother-in-law's house for dinner. Sedbergh House was formerly 'Eastern Promise' – I know; we are back to the verbal crimes of 'Buffers'! - and had belonged to a Portuguese merchant who had made a fortune in the spice trade before returning to his native land. It was known locally as the House of Spices which I think is only marginally less atrocious, and each room bears the name of a herb or spice.”

“Ah” I said. “That is why the dramatic headline referred to a Paradol Chamber, then?”

_(I should explain that at the time this story is set the word 'paradol' was still in most dictionaries, but even when I finally published this tale in my first expanded collection of Holmes's achievements barely three decades later (1921) it had fallen from common use. It is the principal ingredient in the Guinea pepper and also present in ginger. Back then one could buy small bottles of it as a general spice although I have not seen any for years now)._

“Indeed”, he said. “Dinner proceeded as normal with just the two men and the servants present. They adjourned to the smoking-room – the Cinnamon Chamber - at the back of the house for drinks and the doctor excused himself to visit the water closet or as it was in this case, the Ginger Chamber.” He shuddered at all these names. “How that wretched merchant made a fortune while showing such execrable taste is something that I find frankly incomprehensible!”

I smiled at his annoyance.

“The doctor returned to find his host lying dead on the floor having clearly been strangled. Mr. Gilbertson lay directly in front of a small store-room called the Paradol Chamber, the door to which was wide open. I should also mention that the French doors were open whereas they had not been earlier; it was a wet and stormy night so there had been no cause to open them. Also the door into the smoking-room was ajar when he re-entered the room; he had shut it when he had left in order to keep the warmth in.”

“I am surprised that they did not immediately suspect Doctor Easington”, I observed. He shook his head.

“He entered the room just as a maid was passing down the corridor; she heard him call out and came in after him. She told the police that he left the door open when he went in – presumably the shock of seeing a dead body across the room - and she was sure that there had been but a few seconds between his calling out in shock and her joining him. Certainly not long enough for him to have strangled a fellow human being, let alone his being a doctor pledged to do no harm.”

“Did they check this Paradol Chamber?” I asked.

“They did”, he said. “It was slightly ajar; the maid stated that it was usually locked and that the master and housekeeper had keys for it, although the housekeeper was then dining with some of the rest of the staff downstairs. The search revealed only one unusual item, a skull that no-one in the house recognized. Not a real one I might add; the sort purchased from theatrical shops and very obviously fake. It had been placed very prominently on a shelf facing the door.”

“Strangled”, I said thoughtfully. “Probably killed by someone who escaped via the French doors, then. Did they check for footprints?”

“As I said the weather that night was atrocious”, he said. “Next day they tried but there were only a few marks. One odd thing though; the prints that they did find were on a small bank that was _not_ on the quickest route between the French doors and the gate at the back, which was presumably used as the entrance as the front faces out onto a fairly busy road. If it was an outside attacker then quite why they detoured that way is unknown; they could not see the house or anything from the bank. The prints were, incidentally, considerably smaller than both the doctor's and the victim's. One supposes that there may have been footprints elsewhere but the deluge likely removed them.”

“How strange”, I said.

“The maid – a different one - who took the food in and out at dinner said that both men seemed perfectly relaxed”, he said, “while the butler said that they were talking amiably enough as he brought in their coffees to the smoking-room. Doctor Easington seemingly had no motive to kill his brother-in-law.”

“No-one heard anything?” I asked.

“The smoking-room is in the rear corner of the house for privacy”, he said. “Sir Beresford has arranged that if you are willing you can sit in on the _post mortem_ which is tomorrow. I know that police doctors are good but I would prefer to have someone whose judgement is unimpeachable in this matter. Certainly someone more professional than this God-forsaken newspaper writer who deserves to spend some time in Purgatory himself just for choosing 'Hell House II' as his headline!”

“Of course I will”, I smiled.

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“Well?” 

Holmes looked at me as I pulled my gloves on. I had just finished helping to examine the body of the late Mr. Hilary Gilbertson and had found – well, something rather strange.

“Was he strangled?” my friend asked. I looked at him oddly.

“He was”, I said. “Except that was most likely not what killed him.”

“Watson!”

I suppressed a smile. He was rather endearing when he was annoyed.

“He was stabbed in the heart”, I said. “With an exceedingly fine instrument, quite possibly a stiletto knife. Also, it was almost certainly done by a professional.”

“How do you know that?” he challenged.

“Because the entry wound is in the one spot that would kill him as quickly as possible”, I said, thinking back to the lesson at college when we had been told that and the collective gasps of horror (except for my Huntingdonshire colleague Edward Merridale who rather worryingly had been taking frantic notes; I had worried about his going into general practice but had not heard of his murdering anyone as of yet). “I would presume that the victim was strangled afterwards in an attempt to hide it.”

“That does not make sense”, Holmes said, frowning. “If we assume an outside attacker then they must have known that the doctor would only be away for a few minutes at most, assuming that they had been listening in. The water closet is almost directly across the hall from the smoking-room so why waste precious time in attempting to hide the crime in that way?”

I thought for a moment.

“I do not like to cast aspersions”, I said slowly, “but is it possible that the 'bad people' that his brother has reputedly fallen in with contain some Italian criminals? People who are expert in this sort of weapon? Perhaps the strangulation was an attempt to cover it up?”

He seemed to be thinking about something and did not immediately answer.

“One more thing”, I said. “He used some strange shaving cream. Even days on I could still smell it on his face and neck so he must have used it copiously. Something herbal by the odour.”

My friend's eyes lit up at that. I really wished that I had known why.

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Doctor Oughtred Easington was a large man of around forty years of age, jovial and welcoming; I could see that he had made a good addition to our profession. Holmes asked him if he had also been the victim's doctor.

“No”, he said, “but I did make up some shaving cream for him. Hilary had had a severe reaction when removing some ivy around his window last week, and normal shaving cream had made his hands itch terribly. I gave him a herbal preparation which did not have any side-effects and which I had once made up for a patient of mine with the same problem. Is something wrong?”

“Your father merely wishes us to clarify exactly how his son-in-law died”, Holmes said politely. “Do you happen to have any of the preparation here?”

“Sadly no”, he said. “It is not particularly long-lasting so I made it up only as and when needed and only let Hilary have the one jar at a time. It is not dangerous either unless one tried to eat it, and it smells so disgusting that I doubt that anyone could or would. I gave him a fresh jar last week so he should still have most of it.”

“We shall still have to check for it, I suppose”, Holmes said. He paused before continuing. “Mr. Gilbertson did not seem troubled at all at dinner?”

The doctor hesitated.

“He was concerned about his younger brother Hylton”, he admitted, almost reluctantly I thought. “A very nasty piece of work by all accounts, although as a doctor I should not say such things. One of those puffed-up fellows who thinks that he is better than he actually is. I know that his own wife left him after he beat her, and that her father and brothers felt the urge to come round and give him a bloody good thrashing. I am glad that they yielded to said urge!”

“He sounds a most unpleasant fellow”, Holmes agreed.

“Hylton had wanted to move into the house with him but Hilary had refused”, the doctor said. “Very sensible of him, in my opinion. It would easily have been big enough for the both of them, but I think Hilary had his brother's measure and foresaw – correctly – that once he was in he would never be rid of him. Families are difficult things; I am sure that my fellow doctor here appreciates that as much as I do. I suppose that Hylton will inherit the house, worse luck.”

“I hope that he was not counting on that”, Holmes said. “The house falls under the will of the late Lady Alicia and she included a provision that the trust fund she established would only be for her widower. Once he passed the whole thing would then revert back to her blood family.”

“So he may be in for a disappointment”, the doctor smiled. “From what I know of him it could hardly happen to a less nice person!”

Holmes hesitated.

“I would like to ask one thing for my own curiosity”, he said, “but as it is rather personal I will understand if you would prefer not to answer it. Why did you leave British India early?”

“I found it just too much”, the doctor admitted ruefully. “I could cope with the heat – I have never found that a problem in my travels – but the humidity was unbearable. I have arranged to go back and serve a full five years in Egypt instead, which was why they allowed me to buy out my commission and come home to see my family before leaving again.”

 _Egypt_ , I thought wryly. It already seemed a lifetime away, yet I had been there for the first quarter of this year.

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The following day we received a visit from Sir Beresford. The nobleman looked at me suspiciously.

“You are not writing up this case, are you doctor?” he asked.

“Every case I write is done so only with the approval of both my friend and those involved in the case”, I said. “That includes relatives and friends of both criminals _and_ victims. As we say, first do no harm.”

“The case progresses”, Holmes said, “but we are some way from a resolution as yet. Thank you for coming here today, my lord. I wished to ask you a question.”

“Of course.”

“Were there any developments, any happenings at all relating to the unfortunate killing of your daughter, that occurred in the past few weeks?”

“Mr. Holmes....”

“I would not ask”, Holmes pressed, “but I have a sense for when I am missing a key piece of information. Right now that is what I feel.”

The nobleman slowly nodded.

“All right”, he said. “Funny you should ask that because two things happened recently, apart from my son's return. One fairly minor which I did not think worth mentioning and another first thing this morning; I would have come round to tell you about it had I not been due here anyway. The first was that Mary Elliston died.”

“Who was she, pray?” Holmes asked.

“The housemaid at the time of the attack”, Sir Beresford said. “As you may have read she encountered the two killers and one of them struck her before fleeing. Unfortunately they were both wearing masks so when she eventually came round she could tell us little or nothing. She retired to the Lakes just under a year ago to live with her sister Margaret in a cottage on my new Westmorland estate. The latter wrote and told me; natural causes, she said.”

“I see”, Holmes said. “The event of this morning?”

The nobleman hesitated.

“The police contacted me just as I was about to set out for here”, he said. “Mr. Hylton Gilbertson has been found dead in his room in Soho. He had committed suicide; he left a note admitting that he had killed his brother over an argument and that he did not wish to carry on. He said that he waited for the doctor to leave the room then came through the French doors and stabbed him.”

“Another death”, I muttered, wondering about that. I had not read anywhere that Mr. Hylton Gilbertson had had any medical knowledge.

“Indeed”, Holmes said. He pressed his long fingers together and thought for some time before speaking again. “Sir Beresford, Doctor Watson and I will need to make a journey of some distance to bring this matter to a conclusion. We will be gone for some two days; I think that it is unlikely to be any more than than. If you would care to come round this Sunday evening at about seven o' clock, I fully expect to be able to explain all to you then.”

“All?” the nobleman asked. “Even my daughter's murder?”

“That will be difficult”, Holmes admitted. “But I may be able to offer you some news about the murderer in this case even if bringing them to justice may be... problematic.”

The nobleman stared at him in confusion but then nodded and bade us goodbye. I looked at my friend.

“Your surgery would be able to function without you for a while?” he asked.

“They would”, I said. “Where are we going?”

“Westmorland!” he grinned.

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We managed to catch an afternoon train out of Euston that stopped at Oxenholme. Holmes had wired ahead and after a short journey on an antiquated branch-line train that took us to the town of Bowness-on-Windermere we were met by the trap of the Lady Jane Gray Hotel. Holmes told me he hoped to have everything sorted quickly so that we could take a train back around mid-day tomorrow and be back in London for the weekend.

“Sir Beresford's estate is not far from here”, he said, “but it is on the other side of these reed-girt waters. Our hotel was technically closed for winter but apparently fame and fortune can open many doors.”

“You deserve it”, I said. He looked askance at me.

“I meant _your_ name, Watson”, he said. “A famous writer staying at a hotel in the middle of nowhere out of season? I do not doubt that all the staff will be wanting you to sign their magazines and books!”

I rolled my eyes at him. It was true that the public reaction to the case of Charles Augustus Milverton, then appearing in the 'Strand', had thus far been very positive but I was not famous and never would be. Still, that last cheque from the magazine had been very welcome. My bank manager had almost smiled at me on my last visit to his institution, an occurrence hitherto unknown. The surgery had also let it be known that they would be more flexible in future after they had gained several new clients who had read and liked my book.

“I am just looking forward to a resolution of this case”, I said. “Preferably before it involves any more dead bodies!”

He smiled his small smile, the one I knew to be real and not the one that he kept for clients.

“Tomorrow, my friend”, he promised.

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The following day we hired a trap that took us just across the border into Cumberland and to a small but well-kept cottage. Holmes led me up to the cottage door and knocked. It was opened by an thin elderly lady dressed in black who stared suspiciously at us.

“It is all right, Annie”, came a voice from the cottage's one and probably only large room. “I am expecting these gentlemen.”

'Annie' gave us a sharp look which said quite clearly _'Gentlemen?'_ , but nodded curtly to us bade us enter and left for what must have been the kitchen. Holmes walked over to the fireplace and ran his hand along a framed photograph of two ladies.

“Sir Beresford had that done for us on Mary's retirement.”

The lady who spoke was also elderly but even thinner and attired in mourning clothes. She was sat by a fire which gave precious little warmth in the cold winter air. Her friend had prepared a warm pot of tea and some cake which she brought to us. I took a chair at the table while Holmes sat opposite her. 

“Miss Margaret Elliston”, he said politely.

“Mary loved your writings, doctor”, she said to me. “Despite all the dark things, she said that the light of human goodness shone through both of you. When I had the telegram telling me of your coming I was alarmed, yes, but I think that I can trust you both.”

Holmes leaned forward.

“I shall endeavour to make it easier for you by telling the tale myself”, he said. “I know most of it, and if I go wrong I am sure that you will correct me.”

She nodded her agreement and he began.

“When your sister retired”, Holmes began, “she justifiably omitted to tell her employer of her real reason for leaving. I do not know what it was but something happened to make her realize exactly who at least one of Lady Alicia's two killers was, and by implication who the other must most likely be.”

She nodded again.

“He used a powerful scented soap”, she said. “Lavender and rhododendron; Mary always had a nose for scents. When he struck her at the house she smelled it, but of course it was only when she chanced to meet him later that she realized and remembered. She panicked and quit her post, poor lamb. I did try to get her to approach the authorities but she was terrified in case they came after her too. All the worry hastened her end, I am sure.”

“Scent can be a powerful way of triggering memory”, I said. “But who were the killers then?”

“The Gilbertson brothers”, Holmes said calmly.

“What?” I almost shouted. “Lady Alicia's own husband?”

“Remember that Mr. Hilary Gilbertson did not know about his wife's will”, Holmes said. “That must have been a terrible moment for him, finding out that he had killed for possibly nothing. But he still got a house out of it and the only possible danger thereafter was his wayward brother. Or so he thought.”

He turned back to Miss Elliston.

“Your sister may have fled her job”, he said, “but she was a lady of the highest moral rectitude and was determined to do what was right. She managed to get a message to Doctor Easington in India. I doubt that she actually told him much but it was enough to have him buy out the last two years of his commission and return home at once. He came here and she told him all.”

She sighed and nodded.

“Two evil men thought they had got away with murder”, Holmes went on, “but now an avenging angel was on their trail. Doctor Easington had certain advantages in what he sought to do, most notably of course that both his future victims were unaware that Nemesis was at hand. He found some way to trigger a reaction in Mr. Hilary Gilbertson that he attributed to ivy, which in turn allowed him to provide him a shaving cream that introduced certain drugs into the man's body. These had the effect of making his victim slow and sluggish after a heavy meal, which when you intend to stab someone is a definite advantage.”

“Some time during the evening the doctor finds an excuse to move close to his victim. He has in his pocket a surgical knife – sharper even than a stiletto, as you know doctor – and he knows exactly where to stab his victim to cause almost instant death. I strongly suspect that in those final moments of lucidity he told his former brother-in-law the reasons for his action, and that his foul deeds were finally catching up with him.”

I shuddered at the thought of the dying man, no matter how much he had deserved his fate.

“Doctor Easington now sets the scene”, Holmes continued. “The body is dragged over to the Paradol Chamber which he has obtained the key to, and the skull placed inside. If the police take it as a clumsy attempt to implicate the doctor then all well and good; even if not it adds a note of confusion. The French doors are opened to imply an outside killer; this was why he set the small footprints over the raised ground, because he knew that the foul weather would erase any left elsewhere. The doctor then strangles a dead man hoping that any _post mortem_ will not notice; I am sure that he uses surgical gloves throughout which he most likely burns in the fire before leaving. Since drinks have been served he knows that no servants will enter the smoking-room unless summoned. Therefore he can go to the water-closet in safety.”

“He leaves the door to his victim's room ajar and waits in the closet for a maid to pass. When he sees one coming he re-emerges, enters the room and cries out at the sight of the body of the man he has just killed. The unwitting witness comes running and he has a near-perfect alibi; she will swear that he could not possibly have committed the crime in so short a time. He had also remembered to swap the vial of drugged shaving-cream for a regular one in case anyone checked that; you will remember, doctor, that he was quite relaxed over our finding and testing it. The police come, make their inquiries and decide that Mr. Hilary Gilbertson was killed by an outside killer for reasons as yet unknown.”

Holmes paused.

“Doctor Easington does one more thing before leaving the scene of his first crime”, he said slowly. “He takes Mr. Hilary Gilbertson's revolver with him.”

I shuddered again. I could see where this was leading.

“Some time later he goes to Mr. Hylton Gilbertson's house and is admitted. The blackguard has no reason to be wary of his brother's brother-in-law. Not up to the moment that that man presses a gun to his head and tells him that his moment too has now come. A single shot and it is over; the dark deeds done at Hill House are finally avenged. The doctor leaves a suicide note and departs, his work done.”

She sighed. There was a long pause.

“I do not doubt”, Holmes said gravely, “that the doctor discussed his plans with you both beforehand, Miss Elliston. Your sister righteously acted as an emissary of justice, employing a man to do the work that she felt needed to be done but could not herself do.”

She nodded.

“He told me that he planned to go to Egypt and serve our Nation there”, she said. “He means to stay there for the rest of his life. But now.....”

Holmes suddenly stood up. I stared at him in surprise.

“Thank you very much for your time and patience, Miss Elliston”, he said. “The doctor and I will now return to our hotel to pack, then we shall take the afternoon train back to London. Sir Beresford is attending us at Baker Street tomorrow and although it will be painful, he has a right to know the truth.”

She looked at us almost hopefully.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Provided Doctor Easington goes to and stays in Egypt, nothing”, Holmes said. “I very much doubt that his poor father will want to push matters. I was brought in on this case to pursue justice, and since justice has already been meted out I am clearly no longer needed. Thank you for the tea and cakes.”

He kissed her hand and ushered me out.

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“You are letting a killer get away?” I asked dubiously. _“And_ a doctor?”

We were standing on the deserted platform at Oxenholme Station, waiting for the London express. He turned to me, looking sad.

“Consider the alternatives, Watson”, he said quietly. “If I advance the case, who actually gains? _Cui bono?_ The publicity would destroy Sir Beresford and the vultures of the press may even hound poor Miss Elliston, who as you have seen is not a well lady. You know full well that twelve good men and true would refuse to convict a man who had killed his sister's killers, such is the strength of our jury system. Not to mention that your fellow doctor would be ruined by the resultant publicity. A veritable ton of troubles all round for absolutely no gain. Now consider what I am doing even if it is nothing. Our brave men in Egypt gain a fine doctor – or should I say, another fine doctor - who will work out his own penance, and the innocent are left in peace. Which would you say is the better way?”

I pouted. I still felt that allowing a doctor who killed to go free was wrong but I could not fault his logic. Damn the fellow!

“I hate it when you are right!” I grumbled.

He smiled brightly.

“I know!”

_And I hated it when he did that too!_

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	17. Case 111: The Adventure Of The Reigate Squires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1887\. Holmes and Watson travel to Surrey, the wrong man dies, and the doctor ends up in some old clothes pretending to be dying. Plus there is a very horrible photograph which some annoying blue-eyed consulting detective displays on his desk, the bastard!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also published as 'The Reigate Puzzle'.

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

Mr. Sherlock Holmes was my best friend in the whole world and I truly valued that friendship. And yes, I fully understood that friendship sometimes demands sacrifices. But if he insisted on keeping That Photograph on his writing-desk where anyone could damn well see it, then the only thing that I was going to be sacrificing any time soon would be _him!_

Nor did I welcome his suggestion that this story be titled 'Death by Knight'. Sometimes I really wondered what I see in him!

He is doing that lost puppy look again! Seriously, this is my life?

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It was a month since our return from Westmorland and it had been one of ups and downs. Although I knew that by any standards Holmes's 'solution' of the Easington case – allowing Doctor Oughtred Easington to leave the country despite his having killed two men – was the best one all round, I still felt that allowing a murderous doctor to go free was wrong on some level. There was also the remaining unease I felt over the Boys' Home which Holmes had been funding without telling me, despite his apology on the Hoo Peninsula. 

Ironically if perhaps fittingly, it was an attempt by Holmes's obnoxious lounge-lizard of a brother to exploit my unease which brought it to an end. Mr. Randall Holmes had made no secret of his low regard for my role in his brother's life while I in return rated him as worth marginally less than the dust in our fireside Turkish rug, both of which merited thorough and frequent beatings. One day at the end of January the pest called round while I was there and in what I quickly realized was a contrived conversation he 'just happened' to mention three other charities that Holmes was supporting in the area, one of which I myself worked at sometimes (with his connections he must surely have known that). 

“What is your point, Randall?” Holmes sighed. I could see that even his patience, which was never that good where the lounge-lizard was concerned, was beginning to reach its limit. And I had always wondered if one could get a human body out of our large window.....

“Mycroft, Torver and I have decided that it is inappropriate for you to continue to live this way with your 'wife' of a doctor”, he said dryly.

I was sure that Holmes's expression did not change but in the same way that one can sense the impending eruption of a volcano I just knew that his brother had not just overstepped the mark, he had charged across it on horseback.

“You will now leave”, Holmes said quietly, standing up and crossing to his desk. “Goodbye, Randall.”

“Sher, I really think....”

Ah. That must have been the point when the pest realized that his brother had extracted his gun from his desk and was checking it over. Our visitor went an interesting shade of white; he might well have needed a doctor. There was one round the corner in Moxon Street, if I remembered correctly......

“You.... you would not...”

The shot rang out and Mr. Randall Holmes jumped violently. He made the door with impressive speed before turning to face his brother, his face white.

“You shot at me!” he said incredulously, his hand on the door-handle.

“That was a blank”, Holmes said coldly. “The other five..... are not.”

Rather oddly, instead of pointing his gun at his brother once more and shooting all five bullets (why yes, I _do_ indulge in wishful thinking on the odd occasion) Holmes instead picked up some sort of lever mechanism from his desk and pulled it. The effect was electric in ever sense of the word; his brother screamed and tried to let go of the door-handle which.... ye Gods the clever bastard had _electrified_ it! His brother screamed again and was finally able to yank his hand away.

“Clearly my first lesson in teaching you not to upset me over Watson was insufficient”, Holmes said coldly while his brother cried in pain and waved his hand in the air in a vain attempt to cool it down. “I only hope that this, the second, works rather better, if only because you might not survive the third. What a loss that would not be to the world!”

His brother had fled, still yelping in pain. And I do not think that I had ever loved my friend more than at that moment!

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Looking back, I was sure the fact that someone got all my bacon at breakfast the following day was not a coincidence. The upside of the whole thing was that Mr. Randall Holmes's blatant attempt to divide us meant that I felt so much closer to my friend. Although Holmes had some explaining to do to Mrs. Hudson and had to pay for a new door-handle as well as repairs to the burnt area around it. But he said that it was more than worth it, and I agreed with him one hundred and ten per cent!

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“It seems that I shall once more have to travel to the fair county of Surrey”, Holmes observed over breakfast one morning about a week later. There had been no sign of his annoying brother of late, although he had told me that his mother had learnt of what had happened and had been Riled (a Level Three) with the lounge-lizard. I wondered how hard she had hit him and if for that matter Holmes might pop over and teach her a few things about electricity.....

“Where in Surrey?” I asked, dragging myself back from some Very Happy Thoughts.

“The fair town of Reigate”, he said, smiling knowingly. “A certain Constable LeStrade requests my presence in a case.”

 _“Constable_ LeStrade?” I asked, confused. “Has our cake-loving friend been demoted as well as being banished to the country?”

“No”, he said, shaking his head at my witticism. “Constable Valiant LeStrade; the son of his elder brother Kay. The latter is also a policeman who lives and works in Purley, and young Valiant has followed the family tradition of service.”

_(This is probably a good point to mention yet another bone of contention between our friends LeStrade and Gregson, let alone fighting over cases and cake. LeStrade had several family members in the Metropolitan Police Service while Gregson had none, and rightly or wrongly that would count in the former's favour when it came to promotion as would Gregson's 'class' or at least LeStrade's absolute lack thereof. Their superior Inspector Macdonald whom we had helped recently had only managed his own meteoric rise up the ranks due to his uncles, both of whom were excellent policemen, although I must be fair and note that unlike quite a few at his current rank he was regarded by those beneath him as fully deserving of it. Also he kept the peace between the two cake-lovers mainly because they were, like all of the men under him, terrified of the fellow. If he ever developed a liking for cake....)_

“Have you ever met this 'Valiant' young gentleman before?” I asked, wondering he was giving me a disapproving look.

“Only once”, he said, shaking his head in a way that was just annoying. “LeStrade brought him round just before his eighteenth birthday, some seven years back. The lad looks little like his uncle and he is as sharp as a knife, although I fear that country prejudices may harm his long-term career prospects as he is very like his uncle in his approach to life. Indeed I am quite surprised that his case has not made a larger impact in the London press, although this mining disaster† in the Rhondda is quite rightly still dominating the papers.”

“What is his case?” I asked.

“It seems straightforward on the surface”, he said. “It revolves around the commemorations this year to mark the meeting of the barons in the town prior to their forcing King John to sign Magna Carta at Runnymede. The history is perhaps questionable but the results of their marking it are most definitely not. There was a full-sized medieval tournament arranged with local lords dressed up as knights, and of course a banquet.”

“I see”, I said. “What happened?”

“At the banquet the 'knights' sat in groups of three and were served by their own personal squires, one per 'knight'”, he explained. “In one 'tent' – it was actually the marked off area of a larger tent - the three 'knights' were all local men of some import. They were Mr. Leonard Rawlinson a local businessman, Mr. Cuthbert Fisher who owns several farms in the area, and Elisha, Lord Abinger who owns the single largest estate to the west of the town. They were served at their table by their squires; Rawlinson's eldest son Jacob, Fisher's nephew Albert Tague, and Lord Abinger's second son, Micah. After dinner they went out to watch a torch-lit modern tournament and about ten minutes later Lord Abinger suddenly collapsed. He died on his way to the hospital.”

“Cause of death?” I asked.

“It was initially thought that he had fainted due to his insisting on wearing a heavy medieval uniform”, he said. “He was not a fit man. But the _post mortem_ established that he had been poisoned. Clearly the only meal that he had had of late was the one served by his squire and his squire's friends so that would seem to be where the poison must have come from. There were also traces of poison on his hands.”

“What about a hip-flask?” I wondered. He shook his head.

“A heavy eater but teetotal”, he said. “I wondered at that but apparently so was Mr. Rawlinson, and they had a jug of lemon juice that they both partook of.”

“The hands thing should narrow things down”, I said. To my surprise he shook his head again.

“It was a medieval banquet”, he said. “They ate all the foods with their hands, one supposes for realism. The curious thing is that while their food was kept separate from everyone else's, no-one would have been able to ensure which of the three 'knights' ate what. It appears to be a very random way of committing murder.”

“Tell me about the three men”, I said, interested.

“Mr. Leonard Rawlinson is a successful fish merchant”, he said, “who has just opened up a second shop in nearby Redhill. He was known to be on poor terms with his son and heir Jacob who as I said was his squire on the day; the boy's wild behaviour had led his father to threaten to disinherit him on more than one occasion. Mr. Rawlinson has three other sons, two of whom are married and one with a son of his own, so it is not as if there is no-one else to carry on the business.”

“Motive, but no dead body”, I said.

“Mr. Cuthbert Fisher is perhaps surprisingly the richest of the three. Astute purchasing of farmland close to the town has enabled him to sell it on as building land for a sizeable profit. He is not well-liked and has the reputation of being a harsh landlord to his tenants, charging exorbitant rents and being reluctant to maintain his houses properly if at all. He is the only unmarried 'knight'; his squire was his nephew Albert Tague who had recently moved down from London and is widely regarded as his likely heir, especially as he is the last male-line relative. ”

“How is Albert Tague not a Fisher if he is a male-line relative?” I asked, confused. 

“His mother Jane Tague married Mr. Fisher's late brother Wilfred”, he explained, “and the sons of her marriage were the beneficiaries of her late father's large estate but only if they were Tagues. I must admit that I am surprised that was not an issue with Mr. Cuthbert Fisher, but then the boy is blood even if they do not share the same name. They also seemingly get on well, as young Albert Tague is said to be quite easy-going. He and Rawlinson Junior both attend the same school in town.”

“Oh”, I said. “What about Lord Abinger's squire?” 

“Micah Abinger attends the prestigious Christ's Hospital School”, he said, “but was summoned home for this event. It was only one day and Lord Abinger made a generous donation to the school when they had decided to allow his son's absence – after, not before I hasten to add. Constable LeStrade shrewdly notes that while the boy is very much the dutiful son when his father is around, he behaves rather differently when amongst his peers - and his cups.”

“Motive _and_ a dead body”, I said. “He will inherit the estate.”

Holmes shook his head.

“He is the _second_ son”, he reminded me. “His older brother Nahum is the new Lord Abinger, and although Micah does get the subsidiary title of Lord Ifield there are no lands or money to go with it. Plus his older brother is already married with two young sons of his own, although I suppose one must consider the horrible idea that their uncle might be lining them up for 'removal' as well. Like in 'Macbeth', the first murder is always the hardest but later ones are ever easier.”

“It looks like the wrong 'knight' died then”, I observed. 

He looked at me curiously.

“Indeed”, he said and I had the distinct impression that he had been about to say something else. “I plan to travel down to Reigate this Friday afternoon. Would you be able to accompany me?”

“Of course”, I smiled.

I had no idea at that precise moment as to just how potentially humiliating this case would end up being. For me personally.

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It was Friday, the first day that week that we had not had snow. We left Victoria Station just after lunch and were met by Constable Valiant LeStrade off the train at Redhill. He was physically very unlike his uncle; a massively tall fellow some twenty-five years old, well over six foot tall and much more muscular than his beefy relative. He was quite clearly of mixed-breed; Holmes had told me that the fellow's mother was of part West Indian extraction. His face was hawkish rather than his uncle's rounder one and although I have little time for the pseudo-science that is phrenology I would have to have admitted that he did look quite intelligent. Also if one was a local criminal facing that emerging from a dark alley, quite terrifying!

I wondered idly if he shared the same cake-detecting abilities as..... damnation, I was being looked at by 'someone' again!

“Thank you for coming, both of you”, the constable said, and his voice had the pleasant Surrey burr. “This case....”

“Your uncle mentioned a superior who was being difficult?” Holmes said gently. The constable nodded.

“Sergeant Wolff does not like me, sir”, he said. “He wished to pursue a local girl, a Miss Jane Shore, but she accepted my suit instead which.... it was difficulty as I am sure you can imagine. He only let me keep this case because he believes that I shall fail to solve it. I fear that he may be right.”

“Then we must do our best to prove him wrong”, Holmes said firmly. “You have managed to get us rooms at a local hostelry?”

“The George & Dragon on the High Street”, he said. “Definitely the best in town and it is on my beat. Plus the landlady Bess is one of the best-informed gossips in the area; if there is even the faintest bit of scandal surrounding the five suspects she will know of it!”

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The George & Dragon was, I thought, pretty decent for an old coaching inn. It was certainly clean and our rooms, which we had briefly seen when we dropped off our bags, were comfortable. We easily found a quiet corner in the place as it was not due to open for at least another hour. Constable LeStrade took out his notebook.

“I interviewed all five gentlemen again as you asked, sir, and have gathered the following facts.”

“Not necessarily facts, constable”, Holmes said leaning back in his seat. “Some will be statements and opinions.”

“Very true, sir”, the constable said. “One thing that is definitely a fact is that this is the first of two events to mark the Magna Carta celebrations. As well as the tournament there is to be a procession through town in full medieval costume. The aldermen did consider calling it off but Mr. Nahum - the new Lord Abinger as is - asked that it go ahead as it was what his father would have wanted. He had been very keen on the celebrations.”

“Noble of him”, I said, thinking that it indeed was. This sort of shindig must have taken ages and a lot of money to set up, and many people would have been involved with and possibly even dependent on its success.

The constable flicked over a page on his notebook.

“This place was one of several that helped prepare food for the banquet”, he said. “Each one had a section of the menu to supply so what the victim ate came from several different places. The food was all either cold or pre-cooked, then taken to the Barley Mow which was next to where the banquet took place. They are more of a hotel than a pub, by the way. Stuff that needed reheating was warmed in their kitchens and carried to the food tent by their staff just prior to serving. There were four of them on duty in the food tent to make sure that everything was set out ready for the squires to come and collect it.”

“The meal began just before six o' clock in the evening. I have a copy of the menu if you need it, sir. Twenty-one gentlemen sat down to the dinner in seven groups of three, each at their own separate tables some little way apart. The tables were numbered so all the squires had to do was to bring in the food from the same numbered table in the food hall in the order it was presented. There were those ropes on posts things between each set of tables so there was little to no chance of food going to the wrong one, especially with the squires feeding their own kith and kin. No-one had any special food requirements so they were all served the same; I told you about the two teetotal men.”

“Lord Abinger did not show any signs of illness during the meal at all?” I asked. The constable shook his head.

“No-one reported seeing any. The meal went off as planned and afterwards they all went out to see the tournament. After about ten minutes Lord Abinger collapsed in agony.”

“Who reached him first?” Holmes asked.

“Young Rawlinson, closely followed by Micah Abinger. They took his garb off to tried to help him breathe – that medieval stuff is heavy – but he died before they could get him to the hospital.”

“What about the food?” Holmes asked.

“Unfortunately all the used dishes had all been lumped together before we could get to them”, the constable sighed. “The boys tried to identify what they thought were their plates and they were tested first but nothing was found. We are still doing the others but it will take several days. As I told you in my letter I did think about that lemon juice so I had that tested along with all the cups, but nothing.”

Holmes thought for some time.

“You say that there is to be a procession”, he said. 

“Yes sir. Next Monday.”

“Did you keep Lord Abinger's things or have you handed them back to his son?” Holmes asked.

“Lord Nahum said to keep them as long as we needed”, the constable said, “and that he would sell them or give them away once we were done with them. I can understand that, I suppose, what with the bad memories and all.”

Holmes thought again.

“Doctor”, he said turning suddenly to me, “I need you to do me a small favour.”

“Of course”, I said. “Anything.”

I would like to say that I was never that utterly and completely stupid again in my entire life. But sadly I cannot.

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The weekend brought a return of the winter chill, and that horrible rain-cum-sleet that whipped into a fellow and thoroughly soused him. It had certainly drenched poor Constable LeStrade when he arrived early at the inn; Holmes insisted on ordering a spare breakfast for him to which he did not object in the slightest. Although he let him keep all his bacon, which was just unfair!

“I got the information that you wanted, sir”, the constable said. “The telegram from Sussex just came.”

“Sussex?” I asked, puzzled. The constable nodded.

“Christ's Hospital says that they were doing Ancient Greece in history for Lord Micah's year”, he said. “The teacher at the school here looked at me as if I had lost the plot but he eventually told me that Tague and Rawlinson were doing 1066 and the Battle of Hastings.”

I did not see the point of these revelations but I knew that self-satisfied look in my friend's eyes. That had been exactly the information he had wanted.

We were distracted by the arrival of the landlady Bess who looked almost hungrily at the constable. She was a young woman, probably no more than thirty years of age. Constable LeStrade ran a finger round his collar as she eyed him up, and blushed. I knew by this time that he and his lady-friend were not yet engaged, and clearly someone as handsome as he was would draw in the ladies just like.....

That smirk was just _annoying!_

“These gentlemen are helping me with the Abinger case”, the constable said, a little quicker than his usual voice. “I do not suppose there is any gossip about the 'Infamous Five' as they are being called?”

She gave him one last look before turning her attentions to Holmes and eyeing him just as much. Some women these days!

“The word is that His Lordship was in Queer Street and needed to sell a farm he owned to Mr. Fisher”, she said. “But he refused. No argument, but Phyllis over at the Dog & Duck says that Mr. Fisher was in a bad mood after the meeting. And that was just before the do.”

She gave both men a final hungry look and left. I wondered what it was about my friend that just screamed 'available' and silently wished that it would stop. What was wrong with me that I never got that look from ladies?

 _That_ was a judgemental silence if ever I heard one! Harrumph!

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It was on Sunday that I found out exactly what my very soon to be ex-friend actually wanted me to do.

“Hell, no!”

I folded my arms and stood my ground. I knew that we were after a murderer but damnation, there were limits to what a man should have to put up with in this world of sorrows.

Holmes looked beseechingly at me and I winced. He rarely used that look when there was not bacon in the vicinity, and I knew that I was going to fold even while I was pou... scowling.

“Why me?” I not-whined. 

“Because you and the late Lord Abinger are of similar physical build”, he said, “and I think that this may help jog some memories.”

Constable LeStrade had been round to the five other people at the dead man's table and explained Holmes's request to them. He wanted to reconstruct the events leading up to the death to see if it jogged anyone's memories. Although I suspected that there was rather more to it than just making he look a complete fool!

“I will look a complete fool!” I protested. 

“It is not as is someone is going to take lots of photographs”, he said pleadingly. “Please? _For me?”_

I slumped in defeat. 

“Fine!” I groused. “But you owe me!”

“Good”, he said. “Now just one more thing.....”

For some reason I was starting to miss Egypt! Harrumph!

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“What I wish to do”, Holmes explained the following day, “is to run through exactly what happened one section at a time, and see if anything was missed in your statements.”

“You suspect us of lying?” Mr. Rawlinson demanded harshly.

“Not knowingly but there may have been things that, while you dismissed them as unimportant, may still have some bearing on the case”, Holmes said smoothly. “We will take it from the end of the meal. How did you know that the meal was over?”

“There's a bell on the hotel's lawn and they rang it to mark the start of the tournament”, Albert Tague said. “Jake and I were just taking away the last dessert dishes.”

“Now that to me is new information”, Holmes said, sounding pleased. “My friend Doctor Watson has agreed to stand in for the late Lord Abinger, so if the three 'knights' would all stand up?”

I felt decidedly uncomfortable in a dead man's robes. I, Mr. Rawlinson and Mr. Fisher all rose.

“You left together?” Holmes asked.

“Yes we did”, Mr. Rawlinson said.

“No we didn't”, Mr. Fisher said, frowning. “I remember now. I left first and I had to wait at our seats for you two. Not much above a minute, though.”

Holmes looked pointedly at the constable.

“That's right”, Mr. Rawlinson agreed. “Abinger had a problem with his gloves; he couldn't find the damn things anywhere. The boys were all set to look for them but we didn't want to miss the fun – we were already the last ones out - so I loaned him mine. I found them too damn heavy so put on my regular ones that I had with me.”

“Were these the ones that you loaned him?” Holmes asked producing a pair of gloves from a brown bag.

Rawlinson looked closer and nodded.

“That's my shield on them”, he said confidently. “Yes.”

“Put them on, doctor”, Holmes said. I did, thinking of the instruction he had given me earlier and wondering what the hell was going on. No change there then.

“I am sorry, gentlemen”, Holmes said, “but much as I would like to purchase you all drinks now, we must wait at least ten minutes to correctly simulate the events of that fateful day. However once that time is up I hope you will all allow me to treat you to whichever beverage the Barley Mow can provide for each of you.”

“That's good of you, sir”, Mr. Fisher said appreciatively. 

“We can at least think ahead”, Holmes said. “You met up again at the benches where you were viewing the events going on in the field. It was torch-lit and dark, so I presume that you could not see very well?”

“No, we could see fine”, said Mr. Fisher. “It was almost a full moon and not a cloud in the sky, and the torches were well-placed. We were lucky as well; it started snowing barely half an hour after we were finished and there's been a fall every day since.”

“Indeed”, Holmes smiled. “Did you discuss anything in particular?”

“Just local things”, Mr. Rawlinson said. “He was thinking of selling off a small farm out near Shalford but that's too far for me.”

“Boys, did you sit with them?” Holmes asked, turning to the three young men. They all looked startled at being suddenly included in the conversation. 

“Jake and I walked over to the river”, Albert Tague said. “One of us had to remain on duty but we'd arranged to swap over after half an hour.”

“So you were away at the time of Lord Abinger's collapse”, Holmes said.

Jacob Rawlinson looked pale at the memory but shook his head.

“We wanted to head over to one of the stalls and passed by the benches on the way there”, he said. “Father and Mr. Fisher were stood talking about something and Mike's dad was just sat there. He looked a bit pale to be honest. We'd just reached him when he toppled off his bench and was writhing there.....”

“You and his son removed his uniform?” Holmes asked.

“We thought he just needed some air”, the young man said. “But it didn't do him any good.”

Holmes looked thoughtful and scratched at his left ear. That was my signal. I gasped and collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony.

“Quick!” I heard Jacob Rawlinson yell. “Get his things off!”

“No!” I heard Holmes say. “If it is what killed Lord Abinger then cooling the body is the worst thing you could do. No-one must remove a single item. Constable, fetch a doctor.”

The young man ignored him, kneeling over me and trying to prise the gloves off of my hands. As I was curled up in a foetal position this was difficult enough but eventually he had a grip on one of them. I suddenly uncurled and grabbed his hands with my own. He stared at me in shock.

“Bravo, doctor!” Holmes applauded. “You have caught your first murderer!”

There was a stunned silence in the room. 

“I think, sir, that you had better explain yourself”, Mr. Rawlinson said coldly.

“Indeed I shall”, Holmes said. “Starting with the fact that _you_ , sir, were the intended victim in this killing.”

Mr. Rawlinson turned almost as pale as his son, who had been dragged to his feet and was now both cuffed and in the implacable grip of Constable LeStrade.

“What do you mean?” the businessman asked.

“From the start of this case”, Holmes said, “I was struck by the fact that the only squire who had any real motive to harm or kill their father was young Mr. Jacob Rawlinson. His behaviour ran the risk of disinheritance particularly as there were younger and more worthy brothers at hand, and he did not seem at all inclined to mend his ways. Yet it was indubitably Lord Abinger who lay dead while _his_ squire, his second son, did not appear to benefit in any significant way by his demise unless he was planning a career in family murder. Mr. Albert Tague was expected to inherit on his uncle's death but that was by no means certain, and a man cannot plan murder on a maybe. The good doctor here helped me when he suggested that the wrong 'knight' may have been killed.”

I blushed at the praise.

“It all revolved about how the crime was committed, which had seemed to have been in the food that was consumed”, Holmes went on. “However once I saw the dead lord's costume I had an idea as to another way that it might have been done. You will remember, constable, how I asked what the three boys were studying in history class?”

“What was that about?” I asked dusting myself down.

“I was delighted to find that our killer here had been recently studying the Norman Conquest”, Holmes said. “There is a part of that story which gave him the idea for his horrid crime. You may remember that Duke William of Normandy had a reputation for ruthlessly disposing of his enemies? He had been afraid that in his absence his neighbour Duke Conan of Brittany might try to steal some of his lands. The story goes that he averted this threat by anonymously sending his rival a pair of poisoned gloves which, foolishly, Duke Conan donned. Thus a rival was eliminated and the fateful invasion could go ahead.”

He looked sternly at the trembling boy in the policeman's grasp. 

“I reasoned that you would have heavily dosed your father's gloves with poison”, he said. “The police had secured them but had not thought to test them, so it seemed that that danger had been averted. Until today when you saw someone else wearing them and seemingly succumbing to the fatal poison, and reacted as I had known you would. You may care to know, young sir, that before they were thoroughly cleaned and passed onto my friend here they were tested and found to still contain enough poison to kill a man. Your own reactions gave you away.”

The youth groaned and Constable LeStrade dragged him away. Mr. Rawlinson came up to Holmes; I knew before he spoke what he was going to say, the poor fellow.

“Would he.....?”

“I have little doubt”, Holmes said, “that not too far into the future and once the hue and cry had died down, you yourself would have met a tragic 'accident'.”

The man bowed his head.

“Thank you, sir”, he muttered before leaving after his son.

I dusted myself down.

“He could have shown a little more gratitude”, I said acidly.

“The man has just seen his son and heir shown to be a murderer”, Holmes said pointedly. “Now doctor, I think that you had better be getting ready.”

“Ready for what?” I asked, puzzled.

“For the procession, of course!”

“Hell no!”

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I tried to object that surely only a member of the Abinger family should represent the dead lord, but Lord Nahum had apparently heard of my role in exposing his father's killer and had insisted that I take his place. To cap it all Holmes just looked at me with another 'bacon' look, which was blatantly unfair. The event itself was tolerable although the photographs afterwards – individual and then a grand collective one for the town hall – seemed to take forever.

It was not until two days after we were back in London that I found out why that damn photographer had wanted a second picture of me in that dreadful medieval costume. I saw a new framed picture on Holmes's desk, blinked, looked closer - and stared in horror.

_“Holmes!”_

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_Notes:_   
_† The first of two disasters to strike the Cwtch mine at Wattstown in the Rhondda Fach Valley. Thirty-nine men and boys died when an explosive charge was detonated too near a pocket of gas; it made headlines despite the relatively low number of casualties because some two hundred men had been just about to go on duty. A second disaster in 1905 probably had similar causes and cost one hundred and nineteen lives. The mine closed in 1968._

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	18. Case 112: The Adventure Of The Noble Beggar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1887\. Watson meets a monarch who could give the Queen of Hearts a run for her money in the Merciless Stakes, as someone who crosses her finds out - the hard way!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned also as the matter of the Amateur Mendicant Society

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D.]_

My friend Holmes's many cases included everything from locating lost items to bloody murder. In this particular instance it involved both, along with a murderous sibling who, like his ill-starred Saxon namesake, chose to decline some very wise counsel and in this case paid for his stupidity with his life.

'Eighty-Seven was one of my friend's busiest years. Not so much in terms of his ever-expanding caseload – later years were worse for that – but it so happened that I ended up sharing more cases from this year than from any other. As I have said before, one reason for this discrepancy was that while my friend had more cases in later years, many of them were similar to ones in his earlier years and I did not wish to bore my readers by being repetitive.

'Someone' has just remarked that I could always stop being repetitive in keeping on about 'someone' always getting most if not all of my bacon every damn morning. _Like this morning for example!_

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It was only a few days after my 'friend' had placed that terrible photograph of myself in medieval garb on his writing-desk – even Mrs. Hudson had smirked when she had seen it, and I had threatened that I would move out if he ever carried through on his suggestion of sending a copy to Stevie! - that we had a visitor who brought our next case with him. He was a well-dressed and rather rotund gentleman in his sixties, a little out of breath from climbing our stairs, and his card had proclaimed him to be one Mr. Norris Farmington. 

“I am in urgent need of your services, Mr. Holmes”, the fellow said, patting his forehead with a red spotted handkerchief. “It is quite literally a matter of life and death. Time is of the essence. We cannot.....”

Fortunately Holmes chose that moment to present him with a large whisky which temporarily stilled the flow of words.

“Doctor Watson and I think it is always best if our cases start at the _beginning_ ”, he said soothingly. “Calm yourself sir, and then tell us why a lawyer has decided to travel all the way from the English Midlands to see us. I am of course aware of the urgency in this matter, as you clearly came straight here from the station rather than seeking refreshment after your long journey.”

The fellow stared at him in astonishment.

“How did you know that?” he gasped. “Have I been followed? Or worse, beaten here?”

Holmes chuckled.

“Your clothes indicate that you have undergone a journey of some length, therefore a railway carriage is implicated”, he said. “First-class, as the other classes seats tend to leave small pieces of fluff on their users' clothes. There is a faint light brown smear on the tip of one of your boots which is typical of the curious low railing placed in front of ticket offices of the London & North Western Railway stations in and beyond the Birmingham area, an addition to the average station furniture whose precise function even I have yet to fathom. The fine soot on your other boot is indicative of a journey on the Great Western Railway as only they use the Welsh coal that could have generated it. Your card stated your home as the town of Stourport-on-Severn so the natural way for you to have come to London would have been solely on Brunel's metals, yet you chose to go via Birmingham which is scarcely any faster. Also the fact you did not stop to get your expensive boots cleaned while the rest of your suit is well-presented shows that you were in a hurry.”

“But how did you know that I am a lawyer?” the man asked, looking more than a little alarmed. “I retired last year.”

“There is excessive wear on the area above your right coat pocket”, Holmes explained. “It is my experience that lawyers tend to place documents there on a short-term basis. And I know from experience that many lawyers ask their retired members to continue to serve older clients who, as we both know, do n ot take well to change.”

“I see”, he said calming down a little. “You are quite correct, and I see that your medical author friend was right when he wrote about your skills. I am hoping that you can employ them for my use, and perhaps save a young man's life.”

“Kindly tell us everything you can”, Holmes smiled, “and we shall see what we can do.”

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“My name is Mr. Norris Farmington”, our visitor began, “and as you said I live in the Worcestershire town of Stourport-on-Severn. I was a partner at Cartwright and Farmington's, a highly reputable legal business in Dudley, and did indeed retire last year but continued to serve some three clients who very generously asked for my services. Of those three the most important are the de Braoses of Bewdley, which charming little town lies a few miles north of my own.”

“Are they related to the famous family of that name?” I asked. Holmes looked at me in surprise.

“They are”, the lawyer said proudly. “Descended from the self-same Lord William ruined by that villain and blackguard, Bad King John.”

_(As every schoolboy should know, among King John's many crimes was a level of vindictiveness that shocked even contemporaries in those rough times. Lord William de Braose had displeased the monarch by becoming too powerful, so the Plantagenet had driven him into revolt and then imprisoned his wife and son, starving them both to death. Being King John he failed to quite understand why this had not exactly endeared him to his barons, who quite rightly saw that any one of them could be next up, and this led eventually to some thing called Magna Carta. And 'someone' could stop smirking at me like that!)._

“Lord Harold de Braose was until yesterday my client”, our visitor said. “He was seventy-four and, I had thought, in good health for his age. He had had three sons but all had predeceased him. The second son however, Lord Samuel, had married and had had sons of his own, the two eldest being Sulien and Ethelred†.” 

He caught my expression and smiled. 

“Sulien was the name of the first de Braose to own land in Bewdley around the time of King Henry the First, doctor”, he explained. “while Ethelred was his Saxon steward.” 

I nodded. I quite like old names starting with the Saxon 'ae' or ash, even if most modern versions usually dropped the 'A'.

“Just under a year ago”, the lawyer went on, “Lord Harold had a major falling-out with his elder grandson and heir. I do not of course know what it was about but Sulien, a good lad if regrettably hot-tempered at times, left the house vowing never to return. He was barely twenty-one at the time and Ethelred was almost exactly a year younger. I later managed to learn that Sulien came to London where he became a mendicant.”

I bit back a smile at the lawyerly term for beggar.

“In all fairness I have to state that my personal preference is against the younger grandson, Ethelred”, the lawyer said. “I know that he played the dutiful relation to his grandfather but although I abhor gossip, I often heard that he behaved very differently when he thought that he was not being watched. There was also a regrettable incident some years back when he attacked a visitor to the house one time, for reasons I know not, The servants, who disliked the boy intensely, made sure that all Worcestershire knew of it and he was sent off to boarding-school very soon after, where I understand he did poorly. I was also told by Mrs. Farthing, the late Lord Harold's housekeeper, that young Ethelred had been applying pressure on his grandfather to disinherit his elder brother. She said that her master had remained hopeful of a reconciliation up to the end but sadly it did not happen.”

“How did Lord Harold die?” I asked. 

The lawyer seemed to hesitate for some reason. 

“You must understand that as a lawyer, I shun speculation and uncertainty”, he said slowly. “Lord Harold died from a fall down the stairs. Mrs. Farthing admitted to me – off the record - that she and several of the staff suspected that his younger grandson may have had a hand in that fall. Of course there is no proof of that assertion.”

“You wish me to investigate that murder?” Holmes asked. The lawyer shook his head.

“It is young Sulien who stands in urgent need of help”, he said. “Assuming that he is still alive, he is the only thing that stands between his brother and the estate. Lord Harold died late yesterday and this morning Mrs. Farthing came round to my house last night to tell me that Ethelred de Braose was planning to take a train to London this morning.”

“Were you not afraid that you might meet him yourself?” I wondered.

“That was why I went via Birmingham”, the lawyer explained. “I know that the Worcester route is shorter but the trains there are most unreliable, and I can only hope that the young man was delayed. I even took my carriage to Kidderminster rather than the train to Hartlebury Junction, just in case I chanced to meet him. I am certain however that once he does reach London, he will expend every effort to remove the last obstacle between himself and all that wealth. The death of a mendicant on the streets of London would I fear hardly draw much attention.”

_(Anyone with a knowledge of Mercian geography might think our visitor's hopes to have been futile, but the line connecting Oxford to Worcester was at this time still one of the worst in the country. It had originally been part of an independent company called the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway, nicknamed the 'Old, Worse and Worse' by its many critics, who during their existence had contrived the Round Oak railway disaster‡ which had claimed some fourteen lives. Although it had been part of the Great Western for some time now, that venerable institution's attempts to keep its broad gauge had led it to run down services on secondary lines like this one)._

“So we have the added pressure of time”, Holmes said. “We must go straight to the top. I presume that you return to Worcestershire today, sir?”

“I am afraid that I must, sir”, the lawyer said, handing over a card, “as I have a sick client who wishes to finalize their will today. However a telegram will reach me either at work or at home. I wish you Godspeed in your endeavours.”

“Thank you”, Holmes smiled.

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I feared that we might be heading to see the obnoxious Mr. Randall Holmes in his office wherever it was – Whitehall perhaps, or some sewer where his fellow vermin lived – so I was relieved if puzzled when our cab kept to the north side of the city, eventually pulling up outside a small and rather dirty flower shop on the edge of the East End.

“This is 'the top'?” I asked dubiously. It looked more like 'the bottom'!

Holmes smiled at my befuddlement and led me inside. It was nothing spectacular, and that was putting it kindly. Two ladies in their mid-forties were there both dressed in plain work-clothes and working on some arrangements. Holmes approached the taller of the two and bowed deeply.

“Your Majesty”, he said, to my surprise if not shock. 

The lady looked at him shrewdly.

“You had better come through”, she said with a slight smile. Her companion raised the counter for us and the first lady led the way out.

The back room was very different from what I had expected. This was a perfectly maintained Victorian lady's reception room and the flower-seller looked absurdly out of place as she poured out tea (and coffee for Holmes; she even had coffee-cake!). She smiled at me as she handed me my cup.

“You always were one for keeping secrets, Mr. Holmes”, she said reprovingly , but there was a warmth to her tone that belied her words. “Even from those you drag through your adventures, however willingly.”

He turned to me.

“Watson”, he said, “meet Mrs. Margaret Ball, better known to those who need to know as “Queen Molly”.”

I looked at the lady in astonishment before I got it.

“Of course!” I said. “Queen of the Beggars!”

 _“Mendicants_ , doctor!” she said shaking the sugar-tongs at me in disapproval. I blushed and lowered my eyes.

“If there is anyone who can help us with our quest, it is this lady”, Holmes said.

She looked hard at him.

“You are your friend are both known to be more than generous to my subjects”, she said. “How may I help you?”

“Around this time last year a young gentleman called Sulien de Braose came to London”, Holmes said. “The family lawyer believes that he currently practices a life of mendicancy and fears that his life may now be in danger from a murderous younger brother who might well have murdered their grandfather. It was my hope that you might be able to find him.”

“A year ago”, she said heavily. “I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall reading in the good doctor's stories about how a certain famous consulting detective is prone to making pointed remarks that a trail has gone cold long before _he_ is called in. Also that said certain famous consulting detective always makes great play of the fact as to how that makes things infinitely more difficult for him?”

I tried not to chuckle at the almost verbatim quotes from my own works but I failed dismally. Holmes actually blushed.

“All that is known is that he arrived at either Paddington or Euston”, he said, “and that it may have taken some time for his money to run out. I have been asked to investigate as a matter of urgency.”

She nodded.

“I can make some inquiries from here”, she said, “but you would do well to talk to Lord Joseph as well. He is of course as much a real lord as I am a real queen but he is head of the Amateur Mendicant Society, and as such would be in a much better position to advise you.”

“The what?” I asked, confused.

“Mendicancy is not left to chance, doctor”, she explained. “It is all highly organized so that the maximum amount can be raised from the philanthropic public, your good self included, and then distributed to those in need. If this young man did fall to the streets then he would have been swiftly adopted by Lord Joseph's organization and trained to do things properly for some time before joining my own. By having such a system we are able to support those like this young man who are just starting out, and possibly even help them back into society.”

“I am sure that if we can find this man”, Holmes said, “he would always remember those who stood by him in his hour of need.”

The lady took a card – a gold-edged one! - and wrote something on it before passing it over to Holmes. 

“Go to the address on there and be sure to hand the card in to the clerk _straight away”_ , she said. “Do not be surprised if they snatch it from you; they are naturally wary of authority. The signature will prove that I trust you.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty”, Holmes said.

He stood up and bowed again and I did likewise. He placed an envelope on the table that clearly contained several notes and the 'queen' smiled at him.

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“I did not expect to be seeing royalty today!” I remarked as our cab made its was towards St. Pancras and the address that the 'queen' had given us. 

“Molly is head of all the beggars in London”, Holmes explained. “Indeed. if only our government were better ordered, matters might not be in such a sorry mess as they currently and so often are!”

“What part does the Amateur Mendicant Society play in all this?” I asked.

“It is as she said the training agency for beggars, to allow them to maximize their appeal when plying their trade”, he said. “Facial sores, verbal patter, location, the right clothing – it all combines to make the difference between a good day and a bad one, between food and no food. Molly takes a cut from everyone who begs in the capital but she herself makes not a penny and is more iron-clad than a battleship when it comes to redistributing it to those who in need; the beggars starting out, families of those who pass, and so forth. I suppose that, in a way, she is the ultimate philanthropist. Also not someone to be lightly crossed; four years ago one of her subordinates tried to put away some funds for his own use.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Our cab juddered to a halt and I saw we had reached our destination. My friend looked at me meaningfully.

“The man was dragged off the bottom of the Thames two days later”, he said flatly. “I was only surprised that he had lasted two days.”

Oh. _That_ sort of 'queen'.

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We drew up outside a funeral parlour in Homerton with 'Ploughwright & Sons' in barely discernible gold lettering across the front. Having entered, Holmes handed over the card that he had been given to the man who came to greet us. He looked at us uncertainly then curtly told us not to move or touch anything before disappearing out the back.

“What does he expect us to do, exactly?” I grumbled. “Run off with a coffin?”

Holmes smiled, and more quickly than I had expected the man came back. His attitude was very different now and we were bowed through to a small office. The name 'Mr. Joseph Ploughwright' was emblazoned on the door ion gold lettering; our guide ushered us in then all but fled.

Mr. Joseph Ploughwright looked every bit the funeral director. He was about fifty years of age, a gaunt man dressed all in black and wearing what was far, far, _far_ too obviously a hair-piece. I tried not to stare but seriously, it took an effort. That was _bad!_

He looked at us expectantly. So did the hair-piece. I wondered what would happen if I waved a biscuit at it.... and could someone stop with the disapproving looks?

“Anyone who can persuade Molly to part with one of her gold cards must be someone”, Mr. Ploughwright said warily. “Besides I've read about you, Mr. Holmes. What brings you along to the world of mendicancy, may I ask?”

Holmes explained our search for Mr. Sulien de Braose, and I noted that upon his mentioning the man's name our host's face fell.

“There was an attack on that young man only this afternoon”, he said. “A 'gentleman' tried to stab him. Fortunately the boy was out training with old Ben who had his whistle on him. When a copper came running up the attacker fled.”

“How is he?” I asked.

“He was taken to hospital”, Lord Joseph said. “I told Ben to stay with him just in case. Attacks on mendicants are rare but some people see us as an easy target. Molly always deals with them in the end, though.”

To my surprise Holmes seemed to hesitate. He and our host looked at each other as if communicating in some strange, silent tongue. Eventually Lord Joseph shook his head.

“Just until midnight”, Holmes said. “Please. If it does not go as I hope, then of course....”

“I see”, Lord Joseph said pulling at his short beard. “Very well. Because Molly stands for you, the Society shall give you that time Mr. Holmes. But only until midnight, mind, and be sure to make that known to your 'gentleman'!”

Holmes nodded, stood and bowed.

“Thank you, sir”, he said before ushering me out.

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“What was all that about?” I asked in bewilderment once we were outside.

“I will tell you later, when we are back in Baker Street”, he said. 

I was a little annoyed but said nothing. Holmes stopped at a post-office on the way home presumably to send a telegram and even though we went into a coffee-house next door for a much-needed hot drink I was still glad when we finally made it to our rooms where I immediately set about starting a fire; it had been a cold winter's day and I was too freezing to wait for a maid. My friend had gone down to see Mrs. Hudson about something; a couple of minutes later I thought that I heard two people coming up the stairs but when he came into the room he was alone.

“All marches well?” I ventured. I knew better than to ask for details that he would have offered anyway if he had wanted. He nodded. 

“A visitor is due here within the hour”, he said. “I doubt willingly, but he will not chance that I can prove something against him without confirming it for himself.”

I nodded and poured him a drink. We both sat down to wait.

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“Mr. Ethelred de Braose.”

Mrs. Hudson's maid Betty announced our guest and withdrew. The man that she left behind was in his thirties, anaemic-looking and flaxen-haired with a fox-like face. Even without knowing what I did about him, I disliked him immediately.

“Please take a seat my lord”, Holmes said politely gesturing to my chair. I silently ground my teeth but did not object.

“Not my lord, Mr. Holmes”, the man said with a false smile. “My wayward elder brother holds that title.”

Holmes looked surprised. 

“I am sorry”, he said looking genuinely bewildered. “I was made to believe that the hospital had informed you. They told us that they had sent an urgent telegram to your City house.”

“A telegram about what?” our visitor asked.

“We are sorry to have to tell you this”, Holmes said gravely, “but your brother was attacked while begging in the vicinity of Euston Station this afternoon. One of the wounds hit a major artery and the bleeding could not be stemmed. He died less than twenty minutes after reaching the hospital.”

He stared at us both suspiciously.

“How do you know all this?” he demanded.

“Your family lawyer asked me to help track your brother down”, Holmes said. “Unfortunately by the time we found the hospital that he had been taken to, he was already dead.”

He stood up and walked over to the window. He seemed to be lost in thought.

“So Farmington _did_ come and see you”, he said at last, pursing his lips. “I thought he might, although I did not see him on the train. It is a pity that you were not quicker for Sulien's sake.”

Holmes returned to his chair and looked hard at our visitor.

“Two things, Mr. de Braose”, he said and I knew that voice. He had something. “Firstly your brother was still able to provide an accurate description of his attacker to the police. Right down to his eye colour and the emblem on the red tie that he was wearing.”

Our visitor shifted uneasily in his seat and pulled his jacket closer around him as if to hide the red tie around his neck.

“The rambling words of a dying man”, he said dismissively. “You are not implying I hope that _I_ am in any way involved in this matter? I would remind you that this country does have laws concerning libel and slander.”

“I rather think you will find that those laws only apply if the allegation is untrue”, Holmes countered. “Rather more serious is the second matter. Doctor, please bring me our visitor's coat.”

I duly fetched one very expensive coat from the stand and brought it across. Holmes did not immediately take it from me but took a pair of tweezers from the nearby table and pulled a long red thread off of the collar before placing it in a bag.

“When he was attacked, your brother was wearing a scarf kindly supplied to him by the Amateur Mendicant Society”, he said silkily. “Red, with purple and blue thread running through it. His attacker could easily have transferred any loose threads to his own clothing.”

“The words of a dying man and a piece of thread”, our visitor scoffed, although I could see he had gone even paler. “I thought that you were supposed to be a great detective Mr. Holmes. Is this the best you can do?”

“There is I suppose one other thing”, Holmes said, standing and crossing to the main door. “But I am probably not the best person to ask it.”

He opened the door and my hand tightened on the gun in my pocket. Ethelred de Braose shook his head, then stood up and turned to face Holmes. There was a bedraggled figure standing outside the door.

Our unpleasant visitor fainted.

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“I still think that it was a _little_ bit mean”, I said as we sat round a roaring fire. The rain was hurtling down outside as if it was trying to force a way through the pavement but inside it was pleasantly warm. Sergeant LeStrade had gone off with a still unconscious Ethelred de Braose who had had to be carried to the police carriage by his two constables. 

Our guest smiled at both of us. Mr. Sulien de Braose now in a proper suit and looking every inch the English lord. He was still far too thin from his many months on the cold London streets but he was healthy enough and would soon be back to full fitness.

“It was almost worth being stabbed to see his face!” he smiled. “He looked like the End Times were about to come upon him!”

Holmes looked at him.

“You know that they would have done anyway?” he asked. 

The new Lord de Braose nodded.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“When we spoke with Lord Joseph earlier”, Holmes said, “what I asked him for was _time_. For some inexplicable reason the Amateur Mendicant Society does not take kindly to people trying to kill its members. Had Mr. Ethelred not been taken to the safety of the police-station then they would have caught up with him a few moments after midnight. Of the two beggars who were watching the house from over by the watchmaker's, one left immediately that LeStrade took his prisoner in. I am certain that the good Lord Joseph knows that justice is being done and has reported such to his 'queen'. I have also made sure it will be communicated to Mr. Ethelred that any attempt to evade the full force of the law will lead to his meeting a very quick end.”

“An evil man”, I said.

“He was all but certain that he had gotten away with his crime”, Holmes said. “My only regret is that I cannot prove that he murdered your grandfather, Lord Sulien, although I dare say that the Worcestershire constabulary will be taking a renewed interest in the matter.”

“You will be returning home?” I asked our guest. He smiled.

“Only for a while”, he said. “The estate is large but unprofitable, and the town council wants to buy some of the land to build houses on which would make living there quite intolerable. No, I shall sell up, buy a place in London, invest the money then do what I can for my fellow mendicants. I know that some of them cannot or would not choose to get help and that is their right, but some are like me, needing that push to get back into the world that passes them by every day. Uncle Joe can make sure that the money goes to the right people.”

“A good ending all round”, I smiled.

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It was not as events transpired a good ending for Mr. Ethelred de Braose who shunned the wise counsel sent to him from Holmes and employed a lawyer who was sharp enough to obtain for him only a light sentence. The Worcestershire Constabulary were unable to prove the murder of his grandfather against him and the killer was a free man after only a year inside.

His body was found floating in the Thames less than twelve hours after his release from gaol. When I read of it I thought immediately of a Victorian lady shaking her sugar tongs disapprovingly at me from across a table, and I shuddered.

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_Notes:_   
_† Contrary to what many believe King Æthelred II (978-1013 and 1014-1016) did not get his nickname of 'the Unready' because he was never ready for the disasters that kept befalling him (all right, he was never ready but that was not the reason). Many Anglo-Saxon names began with 'aethel' which meant good, noble or wise, and since 'raed' meant counsel or advice, that king's proud (stupid) parents had so named him as someone who would choose good advisers. Of course he grew up and chose the worst possible ones hence the nickname 'unraed', a combined pun of 'Good advisers? Bad advisers!' Only under the Normans was it corrupted to 'the Unready'. Either way he was definitely a monarch who reigned for thirty-seven years too long!_   
_‡ 23rd August, 1858. A train was divided but abuse and poor repairs to a coupling on the first half led it to snap, causing the guard's van and the last seventeen coaches to run back down the line into the second half of the train. The guard lied about his actions but was found out and dismissed; he was also tried for manslaughter but such was the feeling against railway companies at the time that he was acquitted._

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	19. Interlude: Out Of The Frying-Pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1886\. … and into the fire. New constable Chatton Smith finds that in avoiding one danger he has walked right into another one.

_[Narration by Constable Chatton Smith]_

I did not say as much to Mr. Sherlock Holmes at the time (although I was sure that someone as clever as he was would have quickly worked it out), but I had a second and much less salubrious reason for needing his help to become a policeman. A friend of mine in the force had warned me that the unpleasant Inspector Frederick Albrighton had noted my performance in the Cadets and wanted me to serve 'under him'. I would as soon have served under the mighty Thames; the fellow was an unpleasant brute who worked out his frustrations at having been forced into an unhappy marriage on his luckless men, nearly all of whom were desperate for either a transfer or his moving somewhere. Preferably six foot straight downwards!

Mr. Holmes duly came through for me, and it did not take me long to see that everything that I had heard about Inspector Macdonald's marriage was more than true. After my successful interview I went to the beautiful fellow (he would surely have been mortified at my having called him that!) to thank him for his assistance, and during our conversation I mentioned that I would be looking for somewhere to live as my present landlord was planning to greatly increase my rent in the event of my securing a job. To my surprise he told me that he and his wife had been thinking of letting out a room in their house and invited me to move in. Before my upper brain could start listing all the reasons why this was such a bad idea, my lower one had seized control of my vocal chords and had said yes!

Lord, I was in such trouble!

It did not take long for me to find out that the Inspector's wife was a word that my mother would have clipped my ear for using even on the other side of London, save to say that it started with an 's', had one syllable and rhymed with glut (creepily I can still feel her Disapproving Look!). Indeed Mrs. Macdonald had only advanced plans for the room in order to move in her latest lover, and she was initially annoyed at my advent before deciding that I too belonged in her bed. I would sooner have thrown myself off of Big Ben! I therefore found myself working late at work and avoiding the house as much as possible, and even joining my landlord when he went to the gymnasium after work. Him in those sorts and that tight vest.....

As I said, so much trouble!

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In fact Mrs. Macdonald had taken my rebuffing of her advances worse than even I had thought – with what would turn out to be fatal consequences.....

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End file.
